Why Mahomes Still Has Gaping Super Bowl Window

And when Sanchez’s Jets that season beat Brady’s Patriots in the divisional round, a lot of people said Brady’s Super Bowl window was slammed shut.

There’s a similar refrain surrounding Mahomes after the Chiefs suffered a 20-10 loss to Houston Sunday night. Even coaches are under fire, something rare in an organization with so much sustained success.

“You’re just getting late in the season,” Mahomes said Sunday night after the Chiefs fell to 6-7. “You're not gonna get these opportunities back, and that's a good football team. But we had chances, and we didn't execute at the right time to win it.”

Historic December low

And because they didn’t win it, dropping below .500 in December for the first time since the Chiefs finished 2-14 in 2012, the unthinkable is on the Chiefs’ doorstep this week. A loss to the Chargers on Sunday (12 p.m. CT, CBS/KCTV, Channel 5, 96.5 The Fan) would eliminate Kansas City from the postseason for the first time since 2014.

But history says Mahomes, 30, has a gaping Super Bowl window, not one that’s sealed shut. Brady won three Super Bowls before his 28th birthday. Patrick Mahomes won his third Super Bowl five months after turning 28.

And as Hall of Fame writer Rick Gosselin said Sunday, Brady won more Super Bowls (four) in his later career than he did during the first half of his playing days (three).

Brady also lost three Super Bowls over his long career. Mahomes, now in Year 7 as a starter, has lost only two. Obviously, no one takes even getting to the big game for granted.

Remember the postseason without the Patriots?

Most people forget that Brady’s early career included a missed-playoff season, and it wasn’t 2008, the year when Kansas City’s Bernard Pollard ended Brady’s season with a torn ACL in Week 1.

It was 2002, the year after his storybook run to beat Kurt Warner and the high-octane Rams, when owner Robert Kraft united the country with, “We are all Patriots.”

New England spent the following postseason, 2002, where the Chiefs most likely will be next month: On the couch.

Brady’s answer to missing the playoffs was consecutive Super Bowl victories. After that accomplishment, the league went 19 more years before another team did it. That team was Mahomes and the Chiefs.

The Patriots of 2025, ironically, are writing a bit of a cautionary tale. While the league is excited about Drake Maye – as well as Bo Nix in Denver and Caleb Williams in Chicago – remember that since Sanchez led the Jets to that 2010 AFC championship game, that franchise has yet to return to the postseason.

The Jets’ playoff drought now stands at 15 years, the longest active streak in North American sports.

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