As good as Stroud is, Mahomes is in another league
HOUSTON — C.J. Stroud is the best rookie quarterback most of us have ever seen. Demeco Ryans is one of the best first-year coaches in NFL history.
The Texans winning 11 games this past season after winning 11 games in the three previous years combined is a remarkable accomplishment.
Texans fans should be wearing shades 24-7, because the future is so bright.
Unfortunately, the future runs through Kansas City, which beat San Francisco in the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Patrick Mahomes is ridiculous.
This isn't a prisoner of the moment take, nor am I overcome by recency bias.
I'm appalled that Joe Montana's near-perfection is so easily dismissed by this generation of so-called pundits and Terry Bradshaw's brilliance has been all but erased over time. And I witnessed firsthand Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr.'s greatness as the Patriots beat writer for the Boston Globe.
They were all amazing, the best playoff quarterbacks in NFL history. Mahomes is better. Stroud was one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL this season, but the gap between him and Mahomes, and the Texans and Chiefs, is huge. Stroud is closer to whomever you deem is the second-best quarterback in the NFL, than the second-best quarterback is to Mahomes.
Sportsbooks are taking futures bets at 5/1 on the Chiefs to become the first NFL team to threepeat. The Texans are listed at 25/1 to win the Super Bowl in 2025, the 12th-best odds overall and seventh-best in the AFC.
The Texans are a good flier bet. The smart money is on Mahomes and the Chiefs. (And Beyonce's kitty headphones.)
The 28-year-old Mahomes, who has three Super Bowl MVP trophies, has already won more playoff games (15) than Peyton Manning did in his entire 17-year career.
For the foreseeable future, any team Mahomes is on is the team to beat.
The Chiefs were not the best team in the NFL this season, but they won the Super Bowl because they have the best player.
Mahomes is Kansas City's dynasty.
He has done an Alex Bregman. The difference is an NFL quarterback is significantly more important to his team's success than an MLB third baseman.
Bregman knows nothing but winning, as every year of his career, since he started opening day of 2017, the Astros have advanced at least to the American League Championship Series.
The Chiefs have gone to six straight AFC Championship Games, and advanced to the Super Bowl four times, winning three, since Mahomes took over as the starting QB in 2018.
As important as Bregman has been, the Astros could have won games, playoff series, championships without him.
The Chiefs would not have won anything without Mahomes. And he is still getting better.
Already the best freelancer in the game, with the most dynamic arm, Mahomes dialed it down this year.
Over the course of the season, he learned to relax and not take as many chances. With a weak receiving corps, and a defense as good as Kansas City's, he didn't need to make as many spectacular plays as he had to in the past.
That trust just made him more dangerous.
Six quarterbacks rushed for more yards than he did this season, yet when games, championships, are on the line, he runs to daylight better than all the others. He had crucial 20yard runs in each of the past two Super Bowls.
Mahomes is so good that it is almost unfair to compare others to him.
Stroud will turn 23 next season.
If the Texans were to make the Super Bowl, he would be the second-youngest quarterback to start the game.
Dan Marino was 23 years old and 127 days into his 24th year when he led the Dolphins to the Super Bowl in 1984, his second season in the league. Stroud will be two days older when next year's Super Bowl is played in New Orleans.
Mahomes didn't play his first year, but he turned 23 just before the 2018 season. In his first year as a starter, the East Texas native was otherworldly, throwing for 5,000 yards with 50 touchdown passes. The next year, he led Kansas City to a Super Bowl victory.
Yes, he can be beaten. Brady is the greatest of all-time and didn't win everything all the time.
Stroud is as likely as anyone to be the quarterback to get in Mahomes' way, but don't start penciling in parades on the calendar.
As Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Brock Purdy learned this postseason, Mahomes is the guy to beat.