The count to four is among the original Patrick Mahomes rebukes made public, and it was a beauty.
It came to us back in 2020, when, as Mahomes and the Chiefs were putting it on the Ravens, he used four fingers to remind everyone his peers had voted him only the fourth best player in the league — conveniently, three spots behind Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. During that game, some of us at The Star joked that we’d split up our postgame stories by each writing on a separate digit. Dibs on the middle, right?
Wouldn’t you know it, they did it again.
The NFL released its newest top-100 list Friday, and well, four years later, the players picked Mahomes fourth once more, dropping a piece of meat onto the plate of a quarterback who salivates at this sort of thing.
It’s had about the reaction you’d expect across social media, the outlets that toggle between bringing irrationality to the rational and, here, rationality to the irrational.
But if I could interject for a moment, and duck as I finish this sentence: Mahomes being ranked fourth is ... perhaps defensible.
Hear me out.
There’s inconsistency in the voting turnout, the timing of the voting and the guidelines for how to vote. Most players skip it, and those who do participate do it long before the Super Bowl run because they’re long gone by the time Mahomes is hoisting another Lombardi Trophy.
The key here, though: Several base their votes on the current regular season, and I guess I’ll be the one to remind that Mahomes finished seventh in the Most Valuable Player race last season. He had zero first-place votes, zero second-place votes and zero third-place votes, and none of us said a peep.
If that’s the logic — this season and only this season — it’s fine. (But that’s literally the only reason that’s crossed my mind for why it would be fine.) It’s far more puzzling, in that case, the same electorate included a guy who played all of four snaps last year on the list. Aaron Rodgers came in at No. 92. Maybe some of the players were impressed with his weekly medical advice.
Or, you know, maybe some players operate under one set of guidelines, and some operate under another.
Mahomes did have a career-worst year , and I cannot underscore enough that’s relatively speaking based on the bar he set in his first six. He had his lowest touchdown percentage, his fewest yards per game and the worst passer rating of his career, all while leading an offense that finished 15th in scoring.
Take it from him: He opened training camp last month by saying last year wasn’t fun .
If a heavy enough percentage of the voters decided to vote on 2023 alone, well, Mahomes didn’t get slighted.
His teammates did.
Chris Jones is sixth on the list. Travis Kelce is ninth.
But, uh, where is everyone else? Where is anyone else?
The Chiefs had all of three guys in the NFL’s top-100 players last season? I might have stretched to find a semi-plausible explanation for the Mahomes ranking. I have none for the rest.
Some quick math: The average team had 3.12 players appear in the list. The Chiefs had fewer than the average. Man, their quarterback must really be the best.
Or fourth-best.
Excuse me.
Look, this a list that ultimately means nothing, and, I get it, these words here are projecting that there are some sort of trophies attached to it. There aren’t. The list is meant to suck us into the exact vortex in which this column is swirling.
They got me.
But it’s actually just one more example of a larger story — the outside reputation of the supporting cast is severely underrated.
Mahomes is terrific. We all know he’s the best this league has to offer. The players all know it too, down to Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase being so aware of it that he couldn’t get himself to even mention the Mahomes name. There’s no disagreement across the league on its best peer. There’s disagreement on who performed the best last season.
Mahomes has won on a bum ankle. He’s won when facing the toughest playoff schedule in NFL history. He’s won with a group of wide receivers who struggled to find jobs one year later.
Oh, and he’s won after they traded away the No. 1 player on the list, Tyreek Hill.
Twice, by the way.
Mahomes is so good, in fact, that he can sweep just about everything else under the rug.
Including the good stuff, apparently.
The Chiefs defense, in case you forgot, ranked second in the NFL last season in both points and yards allowed. It’s ridiculous to think they did it with only one of the NFL’s best 100 players. There were not 100 players better than cornerback L’Jarius Sneed a year ago. He traveled with the league’s top receivers all season — twice that guy ranked No. 1 — and didn’t allow a touchdown. His planting that No. 1 guy into the ground in the playoff game was not a clickbait mirage but rather symbolic of his season.
Lest we forget, right?
But we have forgotten.
Or maybe some don’t take the time to know.
We’d all laugh at the thought of the Miami Dolphins offering running back Raheem Mostert in a trade for Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie straight up — like the person in your fantasy league who thinks you’d be dumb enough to accept it.
Mostert was ranked 60th by his peers.
McDuffie? Outside the top-100.
It’s a theme, beyond one arbitrary, meaningless list. The last offensive coordinator to talk into the Mahomes headset is now relegated to coaching in college ... as an assistant. The defensive coordinator who led that No. 2 unit wants to be a head coach again, but he cannot sniff even an interview. The Chiefs’ top assistants — both in coaches and front office personnel — are similarly buried by the Shadow of Mahomes.
It’s proof that Mahomes is the best the league has to offer. We’re wasting time debating it, as though that’s how the players ranked him.
He’s most certainly the best the Chiefs have ever had to offer.
But he’s not all they have.
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