Patrick Mahomes (left) and Tom Brady (right).

 

The NFL goes through eras. At the beginning, the game was purely based on the running game. Then came the times of defenses shutting down offenses. Then came the turn of the millennium, ushering in the age of the passing game. In all those eras, there were specific players who dominated and defined them.

Since 2001, the two biggest names who have seemingly been unbeatable have been Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. Brady won seven Super Bowls throughout his career, while Mahomes already has three at 28 years old. They overlapped for a few seasons, but Mahomes has essentially taken the torch from Brady. But the way in which they came to being the cream of the crop hasn’t been afforded to every quarterback, and Brady knows it.

It doesn’t really have anything to do with expectations as they began their careers. Mahomes was drafted in the 1st round, while Brady was a 6th rounder. But Brady recently explained why he believes Mahomes was actually “lucky” in terms of his surroundings as he began his career.

Tom Brady is adamant that young quarterbacks need to sit and learn

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Brady begins by explaining Mahomes had current NFL offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury as his head coach in college, then was able to sit and learn behind Alex Smith on the Kansas City Chiefs for his first year.

And then he’s got Andy Reid as his playcaller. So there’s a reason why it all works and there’s this development that happens, and why Patrick has been able to ascend so quickly. He would have found a way to ascend at some point anyway… I’m just saying, I could have never reached this area of growth I needed to. It was accelerated because of all of the things I had in place.

Brady then goes on to explain how sitting behind Drew Bledsoe and having Bill Belichick by his side allowed him to succeed, just like Mahomes has. Brady has been a big proponent for letting young quarterbacks sit and learn early in their careers, something that hasn’t happened much in today’s NFL.