It didn’t take Patrick Mahomes very long to earn the respect of everyone across the NFL.
The 23-year-old dazzled in his first season as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, leading the league with 50 regular-season touchdown passes and guiding Kansas City to the top seed in the AFC playoffs.
Mahomes’ magical season came to an end in the AFC Championship Game, which saw the New England Patriots claim an overtime win to punch their ticket to Super Bowl LIII. Kansas City’s narrow defeat certainly was to no fault of its young signal-caller, who was sought out by Tom Brady after the thriller at Arrowhead Stadium.
During an appearance Friday on ESPN’s “NFL Live,” Mahomes shed a bit of light on the nature of the quarterbacks’ conversation, which included Brady offering some words of encouragement for the Chiefs star’s future.
“It was such a great game with so many emotions where it was going back and forth at the end,” Mahomes said. “I felt like he just came up to me and was just kind of saying ‘good game’ and everything like that. He was in my place. He got to win the Super Bowl in his first year (as starter). He understands that it flies by, just make sure to put in the work. I think he saw that I’ve put in the work to be in those situations.”
If the 2018 campaign was any indication, Mahomes has quite the future ahead of him. And when Brady eventually decides to ride off into the sunset, it probably will be easy to make the case that the class of AFC quarterbacks resides in Kansas City.