After witnessing the Kansas City Chiefs’ thrilling 32-29 AFC Championship Game victory over the Buffalo Bills, Skip Bayless concluded that Patrick Mahomes is boring. The Chiefs are on their way to their fifth Super Bowl in six years, aiming for an unprecedented three-peat in Super Bowl history. If only they had a more exciting quarterback to spearhead this journey.
On the latest episode of The Skip Bayless Show, Bayless likened Mahomes to being closer to Trent Dilfer than to Tom Brady. “Has anybody out there but me noticed that Patrick Mahomes is no longer Patrick Mahomes?” he questioned. “That super-duper star who took the NFL by storm in his first five years with ‘Bombs away, everybody go long and I’ll throw it 80 yards for touchdown after touchdown. Storm! Storm! Storm!’—that Patrick Ma-Home Run is gone, taking much of the splash and flash with him.”
Bayless continued, “This Mahomes plays shockingly boring football. He’s turned into the ultimate dink-and-dunk artist. Tell me I’m wrong! No NFL quarterback gets rid of the ball quicker than Patrick Mahomes. Instead of high rolling hundreds trying to hit the casino jackpot like he used to, this version quietly plays the dollar slots. And he’s not even 40; he’s acting like a grandpa at just 29.”
While he maintains that the Chiefs have a great team but a dull quarterback, at least they have Taylor Swift on their side to provide an interesting talking point leading up to and during the Super Bowl.
Bayless is not entirely misguided, as Mahomes, especially in the last two seasons, has evolved from the dynamic player he was in his early career. This shift may be attributed to changes in personnel or the notion that Mahomes focuses on preparing his team for the playoffs rather than merely racking up points during the regular season. Alternatively, one could adopt Skip’s theory that Mahomes has morphed into a cautious grandpa at 29.
The flaw in Skip’s critique, however, is that he previously lambasted the flashier Mahomes as well. Two years ago, Bayless questioned Mahomes’ MVP candidacy by criticizing his “spectacularly careless, dangerous throws” instead of opting for safer plays. Bayless criticized the exciting Mahomes for being too reckless and now finds fault with the more measured version for being too mundane. Ultimately, it seems his true issue lies with the fact that Mahomes threatens Tom Brady’s legacy.
