I'm Glad We Now Get To Enjoy Patrick Mahomes' Career

We've set it up so that we can't enjoy sports anymore. Championship or bust. Lamar Jackson? 0-2 in the playoffs so he's a bust. Peyton was captain 1-and-done until 2006. Dirk Nowitzki until that 2011 postseason run was considered one of the larger choke artists in NBA history. Don't even get me started on Alex Rodriguez until 2009. 

If Mahomes had lost to Tom Brady at home in the AFC Championship one year, then came back, went a round farther, and then lost to the 49ers in the Super Bowl, it would have been viewed as a failure. Insane amounts of pressure would be put on him going into next season. And every season after that until he won one. Brady never had to deal with that, he won immediately. Aaron Rodgers backed up Brett Favre for so long and won so soon after grabbing the reigns in Green Bay that those overwhelming public expectations never really had a chance to fester. 

Now, because he erased his third double-digit deficit of these very playoffs, we actually get to enjoy the remainder of the career of 24-year old Patrick Mahomes. There will be expectations, don't get me wrong. The Chiefs will be favorites heading into next season. If he doesn't win another in the next few years, there will be some questions by the talking heads you hear about on the television. But it will always come back to this one. All it takes is one. Marino didn't get one, we still hear about that. Elway held on just long enough to rack up a couple. Peyton barely escaped with two, Brees and Rodgers both only have one, it's fucking hard to win these things for the vast majority of human beings who have ever existed. 

I'm glad this storyline died before it ever got a chance to gain years worth of momentum. Mahomes is too special to be tainted with annoying ass narratives and terrible hot takes every single week for the rest of his career.