Patrick Mahomes prophecy comes to fruition with Chiefs QB on verge of doing something Tom Brady never did

It’s all falling apart in Kansas City.

After their 20-10 defeat to the Houston Texans in a must-win game, the Kansas City Chiefs have seen their NFL playoff chances plummet to just 11 percent.

In the loss, quarterback Patrick Mahomes – who has never failed to reach the AFC Championship Game as the Chiefs starter under center – recorded a career-low 19.8 passer rating.

This came as the three-time Super Bowl MVP completed just 14-of-33 passes for 160 yards – a career-low 42.4 percent completion rate – zero touchdowns and three interceptions to send Kansas City to a 6-7 losing record on the 2025 campaign.

It also didn’t help that Mahomes was also the team’s leading rusher on the night, tallying 59 yards from seven carries.

But questions around whether the 30-year-old’s ability to be able to continue to pull of magical plays in Year 9 began surfacing prior to the season, in light of the Chiefs’ monumental collapse against the Philadelphia Eagles at Super Bowl LIX.

NFL insider and founder of The Ringer Bill Simmons conducted his quarterback pyramid for the 2025 season, and placed Buffalo Bills signal caller Josh Allen at the top and ahead of Mahomes.

The Chiefs quarterback shared the next level on Simmons’ pyramid with Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, citing Mahomes’ decreased production in the 2024 campaign, despite making his fifth Super Bowl run in six seasons.

“I did not have Patrick Mahomes at the top of the pyramid,” Simmons said prior to the start of the season.

“I just couldn’t get there with it… From what we saw from Mahomes last year, I just don’t think it’s fair to put Mahomes ahead of Josh Allen, especially as he didn’t win a Super Bowl last season.

“All his stats are down, his rushing stats are down. My question is, is it possible that he might have peaked a couple of years ago as like Apex Mahomes?

“I just don’t think he was as good last year… I never felt like he had the same command. I didn’t think he moved the same way. I know his offensive line wasn’t good, but I also thought he wasn’t moving like he used to.

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In 2025, Mahomes’ production has once again stunted somewhat, completing a career-low 63.1 percent of his passes, in which he has racked up 3,398 yards and 22 touchdowns to 10 interceptions through 13 games.

This could be attributed, in part, to his severely depleted offensive line which is without rookie tackle Josh Simmons, Jawaan Taylor, $94 million Trey Smith, and most recently Wanya Morris, who was the backup for Simmons at left tackle.

There is also a case to be made that head coach Andy Reid is being too conservative with his play-calling, which has drawn much criticism of late, whilst Mahomes’ weapons, including that of tight end Travis Kelce, haven’t exactly been firing on all cylinders either.

Tom Brady never played ‘meaningless’ football

After the Chiefs’ loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday, Simmons once again jumped on his podcast, along with Cousin Sal, to dissect the game.

There, he read out a text from Hollywood television writer Michael Schur that said, “In a couple weeks, Mahomes may do something Brady never did. Play a meaningless football game.”

“I went back and I looked and it’s true,” Simmons said in his response to reading out the text. “Tom Brady never played a meaningless regular season game. There were stakes for every game of his career starting in 2001.”

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Mahomes has long been labelled as the heir to the all-time great that is Brady who played 23 years in the NFL.

But even in his near-quarter century career, Brady was never out of contention for a playoff position before the final game at any point, winning the New England Patriots a Super Bowl in his first season under center back in 2001.

The Patriots only missed the playoffs twice in the Brady-Bill Belichick era, in 2002 and 2008, respectively, where on both occasions it came down to the final game of the regular season.

In 2002, the Patriots (9-7) lost the AFC East title to the New York Jets (9-7) of all teams via a tiebreaker, whilst in 2008, despite having an 11-5 record, they missed out on clinching a wildcard spot to the Baltimore Ravens on a second wild card tiebreaker which went down to conference record.

For Mahomes and the Chiefs, though, they could well be out of postseason contention long before Week 18 with divisional matchups against the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos still to come ahead of their final divisional showdown with the woeful Las Vegas Raiders.

As such, having been part of a Chiefs dynasty that has instilled fear in the league since 2018, it appears this phase of Kansas City football with Mahomes, Kelce and Reid is over.

Instead, all Kansas City may be playing for is pride and with reports of Kelce potentially retiring at the end of the year, going out on a high with a win in the final game of the regular season.

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