The more this game sets in, the more I watch and read stuff about it, the less I'm convinced Mahomes is going to be the next generation's Brady or even it's Brady Lite.
First of all, the hype is not totally unprecedented in terms of people marveling over Mahomes "perfect" playing style and physical skills; it's a little more hyped than Aaron Rodgers circa 2010/11 but not by not that much. But the point is that in 2011 as the Packers were steamrolling through the league and gunning for a repeat, no one could ever imagine that Rodgers would, ten years later, still be shutout of another Super Bowl appearance. And it wasn't due to some major injury to Rodgers or some severe flaw in his game. It was more about how so much of what we see as perfection during some peak quarterbacking never lasts foreverr; it's a rhythm and confidence level that - like all things - comes and goes and rarely returns to its perfect original state. Accumulating wear and tear and injuries, the grind, the growing external and internal doubt and critics, the slices of blame pie, and of course in today's NFL, the salary cap/big contract dilemna that poses a gigantic challenge to return to that level of dominance and ease.
What I saw in the Super Bowl was a guy who really loves himself a lot and knew he was showcasing himself. He was flaunting the aesthetic beauty of his athlelic skills while showing the world he was heroic and mentally tough despite being badly overmatched. This was instead of trying to win ugly, whatever small chance that was. It is really a lot of the same criticism I've personally noted about Rodgers for many years, that he's way more concerned about how he's perceived and about upholding an image of himself as unique and special talent at all costs, even if that's at odds with taking the highest percentages for winning.
I'm sure you can find a lot of plays where Mahomes just gets blown up, and that's fair. I'm not saying he brought this entire game - with all of its results - upon himself. What I'm saying is that the Tampa Bay Buccanneers were actually not the 1985 Chicago Bears, that Kansas City suffered zero injuries during the game and had two weeks to prepare, that it was very obvious the line would struggle to hold up and Mahomes knew that going in. I have literally never seen a professional quarterback scramble in the backfield for a fraction of that, which I believe was around 500 yards total. Anyone with a brain understands that style of play makes the protection look so much worse and the quarterback look like a one man showcase of otherwordly talent.
Really the only huge outlier about this Super Bowl was Mahomes 500 dodging yards antics. There have been plenty of times in the NFL and in Super Bowls where a defensive line has totally dominated. The Chiefs did have, as we heard for two weeks, an all-time great, efficient offense that couldn't be stopped even if a pass rush could slow it down a little. And for two weeks we all envisioned and heard about how Mahomes pre-snap decisions would allow him to get the ball out immediately. I don't see how this performance wasn't almost entirely on him. And I don't want to hear about how he wouldn't have won anyway. The point is he played in a way that's adverse to winning.