Forget Brady-Manning. Mahomes-Jackson is a QB matchup the NFL has never seen
The new Brady-Manning is so much better than the old Brady-Manning, but maybe we’re making an assumption here that we all enjoy fun. Do we all like fun? Yes?
Can we at least agree on that in 2020?
Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are the NFL’s two most recent Most Valuable Players and, we would argue here, the league’s two best quarterbacks. A logical case here can be made for Russell Wilson. Maybe the Texans’ next coach — Eric Bieniemy??? — can get Deshaun Watson on this level.
Meetings of MVP winners (18 times since 2015) and even the two most recent MVPs (this will be the fifth since 2015) are not rare. But never in the history of the NFL have two players who’ve proven this much, this young, met.
Mahomes and Jackson are the two youngest MVP quarterbacks in league history, which means we’ve never seen two stars at the top of their game play each other with so much presumably left in their careers.
Here is a remarkable fact: Chiefs-Ravens on Monday night will be the first time quarterbacks in their 20s with MVP awards have faced each other since Dan Marino and Boomer Esiason in 1989.
Tom Brady won his first MVP in 2007 and tore his ACL in the season opener the next year (shoutout Bernard Pollard), so by the time Brady and Manning faced each other with MVP bona fides it was 2009 and their 10th game against each other. Brady was 32; Manning 33.
By then, we knew we had two of the best to ever do it — lockdown Hall of Famers in their prime, competitive cusses who respected each other but also knew the other one stood in front of their goals. It was gorgeous. It was intense. It was history in real time.
It was also two drop back statues whose genius was largely confined to decision making, accuracy, and performance under pressure.
It was, in other words, something like the starter kit for what we now have with Mahomes and Jackson.
You know how people of a certain age love to talk about how great things used to be? How it was better back in their day, when a movie ticket was a nickel and kids wouldn’t walk across their yard?
Well, this is the exact opposite of that.
The rivalry that looks to define the AFC for the next decade or so is unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s better. More exciting. More dynamic. The Brady-Manning highlights are anticipation throws made through tight windows which, hey, no disrespect here.
Those are great.
But the Mahomes-Jackson highlights are fourth-and-9, across the body and back toward the middle, 40 yards downfield to perhaps the game’s fastest receiver between four defenders.
The Mahomes-Jackson highlights are a breathtaking athlete capable of pinpoint deep passes instead tucking and essentially breakdancing down the sidelines in a way so foreign to normal human abilities that other trained professional athletes appear to be on roller skates.
Mahomes-Jackson is like Brady-Manning on hallucinogens. This is Brady’s mind and accuracy paired with a shortstop’s athleticism, creativity and arm angles. This is some of Manning’s command except with a point guard’s explosiveness, vision, and accuracy.
The best part is that it’s sustainable. Or, a better way to put it: this appears to be as sustainable as the NFL allows.
Because a decade-defining rivalry requires more than generational talent.
Football is the wrong sport for talent without support. Watson is proving the point made by Alex Smith’s years with the 49ers, or Drew Brees in San Diego.
Andy Reid and John Harbaugh will each likely be in the Hall of Fame someday. Harbaugh won a Super Bowl with Joe Flacco, for crying out loud, and completely reworked his playbook, personnel, and decision making after transitioning to Jackson. Reid is among the most creative play designers of all time, with a mind and football purpose that have expanded with Mahomes as the trigger man.
The Ravens have given Jackson one of the league’s best offensive lines, three dependable running backs, and playmakers for both intermediate (Mark Andrews) and deep (Marquis Brown) routes.
Critically, the Ravens also offensive coordinator Greg Roman, who helped design the offense that Colin Kaepernick (playing for Harbaugh’s brother Jim) took to the Super Bowl (where they lost to John).
The Chiefs have further prioritized athletic linemen, doubled down on speedy receivers, and this year used their first first-round pick since 2017 on a running back with superior receiving skills.
Whether there’s a connection here or not, this is essentially the opposite of the Packers refusal to draft high-round receivers for Aaron Rodgers and the Seahawks being apparently content to let Russell Wilson run for his life on many passing plays.
Those of us in Kansas City and Baltimore have a vested interest in this rivalry remaining so interesting, but this is in the best interests of anyone who loves football. We’re lucky to have this. We’re lucky to know that so much more is almost certainly on the way.
Basketball discussions often revolve around Michael Jordan, who won his last championship 22 years ago. Baseball debates are almost always rooted in the past, directly or otherwise.
Mahomes-Jackson can be the best parts of those conversations, with something extra — the promise of even more. We are living in the beginning stages of the next Brady-Manning, except with better highlights.
The pieces are in place for this to be the rivalry that defines the NFL’s next decade. The league, and football, would be better off for it. So would our fall (and January) weekends.
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM.