Chris Simms: Chiefs Beat Patriots in 2018 AFC Title Game if Aaron Rodgers is QB
One of the more entertaining games we've seen from the New England Patriots in recent memory was in January of 2019 when they faced the Kansas Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. New England won that game 37-31, but Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes made it clear that game that he was the future face of the NFL, and he would be one of the toughest opponents of the Brady/Belichick era.
However, one NFL analyst believes that if another Aaron Rodgers had been Kansas City's quarterback in that game, the Chiefs would have made it to the Super Bowl.
Here is what former NFL quarterback and NBC Sports analyst Chris Simms said when talking about Mahomes, who he had as No. 1 in his rankings of the top 40 QBs in the NFL in 2020.
"People want to go 'Well why wasn't (Patrick Mahomes) number one (in Simms' rankings) last year? Why was Aaron Rodgers number one going into the 2019 season?' and here would be my big reason," Simms said on ProFootballTalk Live Thursday morning. "2018, yes, Mahomes may be a better playmaker thank Aaron Rodgers, no doubt about it. My big thing would have been this, Mike. I think if Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game against the Patriots that year, the Chiefs would have won the game.
"I think Mahomes being the better playmaker wasn't great enough at that point to me to make up for the lack of experience that he had compared to Rodgers. I don't think that Rodgers would have been fooled by some of those Patriots coverages and things we have talked about many of times in that AFC Championship game at that point."
A little over a year later, and Patrick Mahomes has won a Super Bowl. After being in the league for just three years, he now has the same amount of rings as Aaron Rodgers, who has been in the league for 15 years.
