Because of all the interest in this thread, I've place all of the video content of Patrick Mahomes II's college career, and draft day goodness into a single post that can be found here. Enjoy! [Reply]
Hell, they took almost diametrically opposed career paths. Rodgers started his career in the NFL being scorned by his childhood favorite team at 1 overall and instead falls into the 20s to sit behind an old curmudgeon that tells him and the media he wants no part in tutoring him and he's on his own. Then he's saddled with Mike McCarthey for what, a decade, and horribly underachieves relative to his talent level. [Reply]
It is interesting to imagine Rodgers starting his career under a QB like Alex Smith rather than a QB who gave him the cold shoulder for years and divided the locker room by starting a rumor that Rodgers was gay.
Re: Mahomes career phases
I think we can definitively say Phase 2 started the day of the Tyreek hill trade. Mahomes went from running his version of the Greatest Show on Turf (the Legion of Zoom) to a Tom Brady death-by-a-thousand cuts defensive driven dynasty.
God, I’m pumping myself up thinking about how we pulled that trade off. It’s insane what we were able to do. The balls it took to make the trade, to being willing to transform the team (rather than try to find the next Tyreek) and then hitting 7’s on almost all of it. So many iconic/dramatic moments are also thrown in there that are made for an ESPN miniseries.
1. 13 Seconds
2. The Bengals Collapse (Mahomes with the worst half of his career, plus, if Reek is able/strong enough to catch that ball with his hands and we win that day, is the trade ever made?)
3. The Reek Trade
4. Stealing McDuffie from the Bills
5. The Brady Rematch
6. The AFCCG Rematch/Super Bowl Win
7. Mahomes 2nd MVP (first without Reek)
And that’s just 2022, it doesn’t even cover the chaos that was 2023. [Reply]