It’s Super Bowl week, so all sorts of lists and rankings related to the game and its history are being cranked out at an epic rate. The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t actually at the game, but they do have a heavy presence in Santa Clara this week, and the performance of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022 was rated the best QB performance of all time by Steven Ruiz of The Ringer in his Top 50 list.
Mahomes appears multiple times in this list, and there’s plenty of competition to earn the top rating. As Ruiz states, though, “we have never seen a passer carry a team like Mahomes did against the Eagles in this game.”
The stats bear it out. Nearly half of Mahomes’ dropbacks resulted in first downs, which is the highest success rate ever, according to Ruiz. In fact, only three quarterbacks have averaged more EPA per drop back in the Super Bowl in this century.
It’s impressive to remember the context behind the game, too. Mahomes had suffered a high ankle sprain two weeks before that Super Bowl, and he aggravated it in the second quarter against Philadelphia. Mahomes was under constant pressure from the Eagles’ pass rush in that game, and the Chiefs quarterback was under pressure on 36.7 of his drop backs.
But Mahomes wasn’t sacked once, and his average of 6.4 yards per play when under pressure beat the numbers posted by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in three of his Super Bowl wins.
Mahomes’ iconic play in that game was his 26-yard scramble with the game tied and three minutes left. He did it on a bad ankle, and it set up the 26-yard field goal by kicker Harrison Butker to win the game, 38-35.
That game isn’t the only time Mahomes appears on this list, of course. He’s rated 14th for his performance against the San Francisco 49ers in 2023, and 18th for his performance against San Francisco back in 2019. Mahomes comes up 30th for his performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Chiefs’ 202 Super Bowl loss, which Ruiz says “may have been the best bad game for a quarterback in NFL history.”
It’s a fun trip down memory lane for Chiefs fans, but at the moment they’re probably more interested in which version of Mahomes they’ll be getting when he’s done rehabbing from the knee injury. There’s also a keen interest in what Kansas City will do to support Mahomes when he comes back now that it’s obvious he can’d carry the Chiefs all by himself anymore.