Patrick Mahomes: I'm not yet on same level as Tom Brady

Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes is a one-time NFL regular-season Most Valuable Player, Offensive Player of the Year, Super Bowl champion and the reigning Super Bowl MVP, and he turned only 25 years old in September. 

Despite the fact that Mahomes is already on pace toward enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he realizes he has a ways to go before he flirts with catching up to six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.

"He's someone that's a global star,'' Mahomes said of Brady while speaking with reporters several days before he and the Chiefs travel to face Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, according to Adam Teicher of ESPN. "For me, I just try to be myself and go out there every single day and put in the work and try to win football games. All that other stuff kind of comes with it. For me, I just try to be a normal guy and live it up with my teammates and have fun doing it.''

Brady and the New England Patriots, his former employer, got the better of Mahomes and the Chiefs in the 2019 AFC Championship Game. Rather than reflect on that defeat during Wednesday's media availability, Mahomes recalled what Brady said to him shortly after that contest. 

"I was kind of leaving the stadium and they had obviously been celebrating going to the Super Bowl," Mahomes explained. "He just talked about how he respected how I did everything the right way and stuff like that. It's just cool to have a guy of that stature who's won championships it seems like year in and year out that has respect for your game as much as you have respect for his. It was definitely a cool experience that I was able to know that I was doing things the right way early in my career.''

Mahomes guided the Chiefs to a comeback 35-31 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders last Sunday that improved Kansas City to 9-1 on the season. Brady, meanwhile, struggled in the second half of Monday night's 27-24 loss to the Los Angeles Rams that dropped the Bucs to 7-4 on the campaign.