Mahomes the rare QB with no weakness

When it comes to judging the best quarterbacks, they all seem to have at least one deficiency.

Whether it’s pocket passers like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning who may not be adept at scrambling, or deadeye accurate ones like Drew Brees and Joe Montana who might lack elite arm strength, or strong-armed throwers like John Elway or Brett Favre who weren’t always the most accurate.

For others, the missing ingredient might have been decision-making, poise, leadership or any of the more than a dozen traits that make the top quarterbacks as successful as they are.

That’s what makes Patrick Mahomes so special. There’s just about nothing he isn’t elite at.

“Mahomes checks so many boxes. It’s really hard to describe to people how special this guy is,” CBS game analyst Tony Romo said. “I can’t think of somebody in history that you just go through and keep going because everyone has a weakness and you’re trying to find everyone’s weakness as an analyst or every team’s scheme weakness and figure it out. I really feel like he’s just the rare guy.”

Mahomes combines arm strength that rivals almost any peer, with the ability to scramble or make plays on the run, with the accuracy and decision making that limit crippling mistakes, with the poise under pressure and leadership that have helped lead the Kansas City Chiefs to their second straight Super Bowl appearance.

In his short time as a starting quarterback, Mahomes has put together perhaps the best threeyear stretch of play the game has ever seen. Including the playoffs, he has thrown for 15,922 yards since the start of 2018 with 131 TD passes, while winning the 2018 AP MVP award, the Super Bowl MVP last season and is in position for another title on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

That would make the 25-year-old Mahomes the youngest quarterback ever with two Super Bowl wins, reaching the mark a year before Brady and Ben Roethlisberger both did.

“I don’t think there’s a play that he doesn’t think he can make,” Brady said. “He thinks he can make every play, which tells you the kind of confidence he has in his own game.”

Mahomes has gotten to this stage by thriving at almost every aspect of the game whether it be under pressure, against the blitz, from a clean pocket, on the run or on almost any pattern thrown nearly any distance.