MIAMI — Only Dan Marino threw more touchdown passes (78) than Patrick Mahomes (76) did in his combined second and third seasons, which have been Mahomes’ two seasons as the Chiefs’ full-time starter. Add in the eight touchdown passes Mahomes has already thrown in the 2019 playoffs, and the three he threw against the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship game, and it’s clear that he’s one of the most remarkable young quarterbacks in NFL history.
If you go a bit further down that list, you’ll see that Andrew Luck and Jeff Garcia are tied for third at 63 touchdown passes, and Kurt Warner ranks fourth with 62. Warner had to bounce around before he finally found his opportunity with the Rams of the late 1990s, but he eventually put things together well enough to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Warner studies today’s quarterbacks at a very high level, and he’s always interesting to talk to on the subject.
I asked Warner on Thursday if there are things Mahomes does that he’s never seen a quarterback do, and Warner took it in a different (and interesting) direction.
“I would say no — we’ve seen quarterbacks do a lot of these things. I wonder, and he’s still young, but I wonder if we’ve never seen the entire package like we’ve seen with Patrick Mahomes. He’s got the freaky athleticism and arm talent of an Aaron Rodgers, he’s got the ability to be accurate and play in the pocket like other great quarterbacks, and the thing for me that separates him is the ability to creatively see the game, which is very unique. There are only a few guys I know of who have been able to do those sorts of things.
“When you put it all together, and there’s a lot to be determined yet, I do think there is the potential for him to be the most complete quarterback we may have ever seen.”
That’s extremely high praise from one of the greatest quarterbacks of his own era, and someone who helped to change the ways in which the game is played in ways that benefit Mahomes and his compatriots today. Warner’s career was a testament to total quarterback development against great odds — he was famously rejected by multiple NFL teams, had to find his way through NFL Europe and the Arena League, and finally found his way as the Rams’ starting quarterback, winning both NFL and Super Bowl MVP awards, in 1999 at age 28.