Beating Tom Brady in the playoffs among most difficult challenges in NFL history
Patrick Mahomes will enter one of the most exclusive clubs in all of football if he leads the Kansas City Chiefs to another Super Bowl victory later this week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
You might think that sentence is setting up a story about Mahomes becoming the next great quarterback to win multiple championship rings. But you would be wrong.
This club is way harder to get into that. Twelve different quarterbacks have won more than one Super Bowl. Big deal.
There are only seven members in this football fraternity. They are the elite of the elite. Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees were both denied membership already this year.
We’re talking about quarterbacks that have beaten Tom Brady in the postseason. Current membership consists of: Mark Sanchez, Nick Foles, Ryan Tannehill, Jake Plummer, Joe Flacco, Eli Manning and Peyton Manning.
That’s it. That’s the entire list of quarterbacks that have defeated Brady in a postseason game. No Ben Roethlisberger, no Philip Rivers, no Andrew Luck or any other skilled signal-caller you can think of who has played in the NFL over the past 20 years.
Mahomes missed out on his first opportunity to join the club two seasons ago when the New England Patriots defeated the Chiefs in overtime of the AFC Championship Game. He owns a 2-2 record against Brady over the course of his young career, but he is 0-1 in the postseason.
The vast majority of quarterbacks in the NFL knows how that feels, especially those that reside in the AFC. There’s a reason many refer to Brady as the GOAT. He helped guide the Patriots to nine Super Bowls in New England and is now stunningly back on the game’s biggest stage at age 43 with a new team.
He is far from the only reason why the Buccaneers qualified for the postseason and then won three straight road playoff games to become the first team in NFL history to play the Super Bowl in its home stadium, but his winning persona certainly lifted their offense.
Brady owns a winning record against most other quarterbacks, even some of the best in NFL history. He went 11-6 against Peyton Manning, for example, and has stood in the way of several quality passers as they tried to reach the Super Bowl, including Mahomes.
The journey began in 2001 when Brady seemingly came out of nowhere and led the Patriots to a championship after taking over for Drew Bledsoe. Rich Gannon, Kordell Stewart and Kurt Warner were all denied entrance into the club that postseason.
Two years later, when the Patriots returned to playoffs and won another Super Bowl, Brady turned away Steve McNair, Peyton Manning and Jake Delhomme.
Another Super Bowl run the following season meant rejection letters for Manning, Roethlisberger and Donovan McNabb. He won his first 10 playoff games.
Jake Plummer became the first member of the club when he guided the Denver Broncos to a 27-13 victory over the Patriots at the end of the 2005 season. He only threw for 197 yards and a touchdown, but Brady tossed a pair of interceptions.
That opened the door for some more new members that pulled off stunning upsets of their own, including Sanchez throwing for three touchdowns against the Patriots. Foles and Eli Manning beat Brady in the Super Bowl. Flacco and Peyton Manning downed Brady in the AFC Championship Game.
In the end Peyton Manning held a 3-2 playoff advantage over Brady as a member of the both the Colts and the Broncos. Flacco split four playoff games against Brady, humorously winning one of them while only throwing for 34 yards. But few others could sustain any kind of success against him.
Brady’s career postseason record is 33-11.
Rivers seemed to be well positioned to knock off Brady and the Patriots in the 2007 season, but New England won that game 21-12 as the Chargers played hurt at several key positions. League MVP Ladainian Tomlinson hardly played, tight end Antonio Gates was limited and Rivers was dealing with a torn ligament in his knee.
Roethlisberger and the Steelers have won Super Bowls, but never without another team beating Brady first.
Mahomes and the Chiefs benefited last season when the Titans beat the Patriots in the wild-card round. He guided Kansas City to its first championship in 50 years. That earned him membership into an exclusive club as a former MVP and Super Bowl winner.
But beating Brady in the playoffs has been historically even more difficult.