Former NFL quarterback: Chiefs would’ve won AFC Championship Game with Aaron Rodgers

It’s been five months since the AFC Championship Game and the sting of the Chiefs’ overtime defeat has faded a bit.

Naturally, Chiefs fans haven’t completely forgotten how close the team came to its first Super Bowl in 49 years. So, what was the reason the Chiefs came up just a bit short?

Was it Dee Ford’s offsides call? Or the defense’s inability to stop the Patriots on third down?

Former Buccaneers quarterback Chris Simms said this week he believes the Chiefs would have won that game with a different quarterback: Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers.

Simms counted down his top 40 quarterbacks in the NFL on “PFT Live” and and Rodgers was listed at No. 1, followed by the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes.

“The whole Top 10 is nitpicking,” Simms said on “PFT Live.” “These are all all-stars and great players, but as awesome I think Mahomes is, I think that if Aaron Rodgers was on the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, that they would have won that game. … These are my two favorite quarterbacks in football. It was a very tough call, but I’m still not ready to relinquish the title from Aaron Rodgers.”

Rodgers, 35, just completed his 14th season in the NFL and the Packers finished 6-9-1.

Simms said Rodgers’ experience is what put him ahead of Mahomes, who had the luxury of taking over a team that had been to the playoffs and was loaded on offense.

“I’m not ready to call him better than Aaron Rodgers quite yet,” Simms said of Mahomes. “I think the talent on the field, it’s certainly comparable. The arm, the ability to move, scramble, all of those things are so special by both of these guys and Mahomes is unbelievable. … With all that being said, it was very equal. I went back and forth and at first I did write Mahomes at number one

“Really what it came down to as far as the tie-breaker between these guys — because it’s really like 1A and 1B to me — is the experience factor at this time is where I give Aaron Rodgers the advantage in a race that’s this close. … We saw the inexperience hurt him a little bit in games where teams did some different things.”

Simms went on to compare Mahomes, who was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in his first season as a starter after throwing for 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns, to another NFL great.

“It was a special, special season,” Simms said. “It was 1984 Dan Marino-ish the way he did things last year. I’ve never seen a guy come into the league their first year as a starting quarterback and really take over the league and take over everything about it by storm with just phenomenal plays…Mahomes has the talent and the demeanor to really challenge the all-time greats and be the greatest quarterback of all-time or be in that conversation. He certainly has the talent to do that.”

Later, Simms said on his podcast that there is room for Mahomes to grow and one day he could come close to 60 touchdown passes in a season.

You can listen to Simms talking more about Mahomes on his podcast here if the video below doesn’t play: