Patrick Mahomes didn’t top any category in Dan Orlovsky’s viral QB traits list — but his greatest superpower was missing entirely
Mahomes had a fair claim to at least three of Orlovsky’s traits — but Pat’s real superpower didn’t make the cut at all.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is well on his way to not only a first-ballot Hall of Fame career but potentially seizing the title of the ‘GOAT’ when it is all said and done. There are a lot of chapters left for Mahomes to write in his NFL career before we know the final tally. But there’s a recent trend that’s growing across the NFL landscape that has Mahomes under the microscope. It comes with the territory of expectations. As they say, heavy is the crown.
Mahomes has been crowned as the league’s best quarterback for years but the 2025 preseason is bringing a fresh wave of skepticism regarding Mahomes’ standing among the NFL elites. Names like Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson are being infused into the conversation of the league’s best by some — in large part because it’s boring to simply accept Mahomes’ play may wax and wane in any given year but he’s still in possession of the most elite body of work and in the prime of his career.
Which brings us to ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky. Orlovsky put together a list of seven traits for the quarterback position and provided his current top-10 NFL quarterbacks in each of those seven categories. Mahomes was well represented but not atop the list for any of the seven traits. What gives?
Patrick Mahomes ranking in all seven traits by Dan Orlovsky says more than any one trait in isolation
Mahomes was ranked in six of the seven categories total by Orlovsky, offering him a firm footing as a regular staple of the list. But when you consider some of Mahomes’ peers, it does appear as though Mahomes is being faded a bit. Josh Allen was ranked in all seven categories and was ranked in the top three in four of them. Lamar Jackson was also ranked in all seven categories and received five top three rankings.
Here are Mahomes’ rankings in Orlovsky’s seven quarterback traits:
Arm strength – 2nd behind Josh Allen
Ball placement – 5th behind Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels, Lamar Jackson & Allen
Mechanics – Unranked
Decision-making – 5th behind Burrow, Allen, Jackson & Daniels
Pocket presence – 3rd behind Burrow & Jackson
Rushing ability – 6th behind Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Allen, Daniels & Justin Fields
Second reaction – 2nd behind Jackson
So where does Mahomes have a legitimate gripe for his footing? Are there any categories in which he was outright slighted?
Mahomes has enough arm strength to have a legitimate argument for a top spot depending on how you choose to quantify actual arm strength. I think Mahomes also has a legitimate claim to the top spot for both the pocket presence and second reaction categories, too. Mahomes is other-worldly with his peripheral feel of space within the pocket and, subsequently, his ability to keep his eyes down the field to find eligibles and outlets while under duress.
This, to me, is where Chiefs fans and Mahomes have the best argument with Orlovsky’s list. Joe Burrow’s toughness and willingness to hold the ball to allow plays to develop while sliding in negligible space is admirable. Hell, it’s elite. But it’s not the same slipperiness that we see from Mahomes each and every game to slither out of collapsing spaces. And it was the magic of Mahomes under duress and outside of structure that has really jumpstarted this latest thirst across the league for everyone to have a quarterback with ice in his veins in the chaos.
Which brings us to an eighth trait — one not included in Orlovksy’s exercise but the one where Mahomes clearly stands alone.
Patrick Mahomes’s best trait is the ‘clutch gene’ intangible
When you’ve got to have a play, whose hands do you want the ball in? The answer is Patrick Mahomes. And it doesn’t have anything to do with him having the strongest of all arms or being the fastest of all runners. It’s the speed of the game between the ears. It’s the creative flair for the impossible that Mahomes has now mastered as he enters into presumably the second-half of his NFL career.
In 2024 alone, Mahomes is credited with six fourth-quarter comebacks and eight game-winning drives between the regular season and the playoffs. The Chiefs won 17 games last season and half of them required Mahomes to assemble a game-winning drive. Pro Football Reference classifies a ‘game-winning drive’ as an offensive possession in the fourth quarter or overtime that scores points and puts the winning team into the lead for the final time.
How impressive are Mahomes’ clutch moments in the fourth quarter? In the last three years alone, with Kansas City winning two Super Bowls and appearing in another, Mahomes has 14 fourth-quarter comebacks and 18 game-winning drives. Across the last three seasons alone!
Mahomes’ 14 fourth-quarter comebacks over that stretch are more than Josh Allen has in his entire seven year NFL career to date (13). Lamar Jackson has 10 fourth-quarter comebacks over the same period of time. Joe Burrow, drafted in 2020, has six. Let that sink in for a moment. Mahomes had as many fourth-quarter comebacks last season as Joe Burrow has had since being drafted. As a matter of fact, Mahomes has won more than he hasn’t when trailing in the fourth quarter or overtime.
So at the end of the day, the NFL’s elite quarterbacks can have hairs split over who is better in this trait or that. But what makes Patrick Mahomes, Patrick Mahomes? That’s the intangible element when the chips are down and the deck is stacked against you. And in that regard, there is zero debate at all.
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