Pat Mahomes Reveals His Five Greatest Quarterbacks of All Time

Everybody always loves to rank things. Who are your top five quarterbacks in the NFL? 
I’m not going to put them in order, but I mean there’s… It’s so hard, man. There’s like 10 top five quarterbacks. But I mean you got to look at the track record the last few years. I mean you got me, Joe [Burrow], Josh [Allen], you got Lamar [Jackson], you got Jalen Hurts, who’s coming up strong after this last season, I’m sure he’ll be even better this next. You got Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert… I mean there’s so many quarterbacks, I don’t want to just name five. But I mean even the guys that are injured: you got Kyler Murray coming off injury, you got Russell Wilson, who can have a bounce back year, Aaron Rodgers. There’s so many quarterbacks in this league, it’s hard to put five. And I guess the best thing about this league is you have a top five quarterbacks this year and then next year it could be completely different. So all you can worry about right now is who is going to be in the top five after this upcoming season and I’m going to try to place myself in there.

Do you think that this is the most talent there’s ever been at the quarterback position?
I would say maybe top to bottom. You look back and you got like Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, freaking Troy Aikman, [John] Elway. There’s been some Hall of Famers that have all played in the same era, but I think top to bottom, it’s hard to find a spot on any team, but the quarterback’s not a guy that you can see win playoff games. And I think that’s made it so special. I think that comes with development, coaching, and evolution of the quarterback position. So I think it’s definitely a golden era for the quarterback position. Maybe we don’t have those Hall of Fame guys yet at the top, but one through 32, I mean there’s quarterbacks that don’t even get a chance to start that are great players.

You named a lot of legends there. Do you have a top five quarterbacks of all time list?
Yeah, I mean, you got to say Tom’s 1, but if you talk about the legends of the game, Tom, Peyton Manning, obviously Aaron Rogers, Joe Montana, and then it gets down to Dan Marino or John Elway to round off your top five. But I mean there’s some great quarterbacks that played this game, man, I’m trying to learn from them because even though the game has progressed, there’s still stuff in the past that helps you become a better quarterback.

Aaron Rodgers finally came over to the AFC, is that something that motivates you even more?
I don’t think it motivates me anymore, but the crazy part was when you play those great quarterbacks, you expect to play them at some point in the playoffs, in the Super Bowl, that should be your goal. And so they come to the AFC, it just makes the AFC even better. But I’ve been lucky enough to play in a division where it’s like playoff football every single week and people wonder why we have so much success, and I’m like when you play playoff football teams when you get to the playoffs, it doesn’t seem like it’s such a big transition. So if you tell yourself that and you go through the AFC, and you’re winning AFC games week in and week out when you get to the playoffs and you get to the Super Bowl, you’re like, “I’ve been playing this type of football yearlong.”

The goal obviously is always to win the Super Bowl. You’ve won two of those and you’ve won two MVPs. How do you stay motivated? How do you keep pushing yourself to do something that you haven’t done already?
You just try to chase greatness, I think that’s the biggest thing. To me, it’s not always about the positivity of winning the Super Bowl, but I’ve always looked back and said I don’t want to have regrets. I think it’s that more than anything. I’ve realized how special the place I’m in with Kansas City is, with the best tight end of all time, one of the best defensive players of all time, and one of the best coaches of all time. I know this won’t last forever. I’m going to have to just try to maximize it every single year that I get a chance to. I don’t want to have regrets about not doing something to the best of my ability. And I think if you have that mindset every single day, then at the end of your career you can look back and say, “I acted the right way.”