Romo: A lot rests for Mahomes’ legacy on beating Brady for title
CBS lead NFL analyst Tony Romo will talk plenty about the matchup of quarterbacks Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes from now until the end of Super Bowl 55.
And the former Cowboys quarterback expects that conversation to continue for decades.
“This game is bigger than people realize,” Romo said Thursday on a media Zoom call. “Twenty, 30, 40, 50 years from now, this is the game people are going to go back to.”
Romo’s hype is based on the quarterbacks’ places in their careers going into the Feb. 7 game between the teams at Raymond James Stadium that will be broadcast on CBS. Brady, joining the Bucs at age 43 in offseason free agency, has a chance to cement his standing as the best ever with a seventh Super Bowl win in 10 tries. Mahomes, in his fourth pro season and looking for a second straight Super Bowl win at 25, needs a victory for the chance to someday usurp Brady.
“I think it’s a legacy game, I really do,” Romo said. “(It’s) one of the great matchups in sports history. This matchup right here is what you talk about with your friends.”
Trying to think of comparisons for the Brady-Mahomes matchup, the best Romo could come up with was a time-shifting NBA Finals matchup featuring an older Michael Jordan against a young LeBron James.
“It would be the greatest thing in the history of sports,” Romo said. “And I’m like, ‘I think we might have that Super Bowl. We might have that game.’ “
Jordan, like Brady, was so good, he became the face of the NBA, Romo said. James, like Mahomes, came
along with the potential to one day challenge him.
“LeBron James is chasing Michael Jordan. He’s been his entire career,” Romo said. “Jordan set the bar so high. LeBron has to be so amazing to get in the discussion, and he is. Somehow, he’s put himself in that discussion. The fact that Patrick Mahomes is somehow even remotely in this discussion (with Brady) shows you how amazing this guy is.”
Another example, Romo said, would be Tiger Woods dueling Jack Nicklaus
in a golf tournament when both were in their prime.
Framed that way, Romo said, a win in this Super Bowl is much more important to Mahomes, who has beaten Brady two of three times in regularseason play but lost to him in the 2019 AFC Championship Game.
“This is the biggest game Patrick Mahomes will ever play in for the rest of his career,” Romo said. “It’s the only way to catch Tom Brady. He has to win this game. If he loses this game, he cannot catch Tom Brady, in my opinion.”