Tom Brady is a minority owner of the Raiders, but it’s the quarterback of the AFC West rival Chiefs he most respects in the NFL today.
Asked on the Joel Klatt Show if there are any quarterbacks he respects for how they go about their business or remind him of himself, Brady named only Mahomes as he gave a long answer about everything a quarterback has to do to win.
“It’s always that line about who wants to win versus who’s willing to do whatever it takes to win,” Brady said. “Everyone wants to win, but what are the habits and the daily habits and the actionable things you need to do every day to put your team in a position to win? So Patrick Mahomes, to me, is the one that does that the most often because who he is, obviously his physical talent, how he understands what he needs to do offensively, and he brings a consistent winning attitude to work every single day. In the biggest moments you can depend on him the most. That’s clear.”
Brady didn’t mention any other active quarterbacks by name but indicated that the other top quarterbacks in the league still have more to prove before they’re on Mahomes’ level.
“There’s other guys that are still developing, and they need to prove it before, in my mind, I can say, ‘Oh yeah, he’s done it.’ Well, obviously, he hasn’t done it yet,” Brady said. “They’ve all shown flashes of amazing things. They’re all great players. All of them can make tremendous plays. At some point, they need to take the next step and take, in my mind, more ownership of what they’re doing, in terms of the organizational level, to do more things to empower more people, to get more people on that train or that bus with you to head in the direction you want to go.”
Brady said he isn’t sure if the current crop of quarterbacks outside Mahomes are doing every single thing they need to do to be the leaders of a franchise.
“The quarterback, in many ways, is the CEO of the team,” Brady said. “Certainly on game day, there’s nobody that impacts the game more than the quarterback in NFL football. Now, you have to have the ability and the belief from the entire team, offensively and defensively, that your word means so much. And how you act every day matters to all three phases of the game. As a quarterback you don’t just punch the clock, ‘I did my job, I threw for 40 touchdowns, why are we not winning?’ What are you doing in the offseason to help your defense? What are you doing to push the personnel department, to get people doing the right thing. Are you involved in game planning? I used to do game plans. I used to walk in and say, ‘Here’s the things we’re doing.’ I used to do my own walk-throughs. I used to say, ‘Alright, guys, I don’t give a fuck if the coaches want to come, we’re doing our walk-through.’”
Brady reached 10 Super Bowls and won seven of them, the best in NFL history. Mahomes has been to five Super Bowls and won three. Time will tell if Mahomes is ever going to supplant Brady as the greatest quarterback in NFL history, but Brady thinks Mahomes is doing the right things to get there — even as the team Brady co-owns tries to prevent that from happening.
