last week on the QB room podcast. Host by his brother.
Jordan Palmer on the question of whether or not Joe burrow is
a better NFL quarterback than Pat Mahomes. Not look we all
love jobber. Oh we love Joe
Borough as much as anyone but we recognize
I think we agree
Patrick Mahomes A Cut Above everybody at this point
especially after what we saw him do last year
but Carson Palmer
different opinion.
He's entitled to
To it. Let's have a listen,
I think Joe's the best quarterback in the league. I think
I know Patrick is
phenomenal
but I just think Joe's more consistent. He's more
consistent. He's more accountable to run the system
in the play that's called
and not feel like well he didn't win last time and get
open for me. So I won't do it with my feet and then before
you know, it you're soft for a four yard loss because you
tried to make two or three guys mess.
Joe is just he
Talk about not having a weakness, mentally strong,
physically tall
accurate control, it far enough, fast enough gets
the ball out quick and then he can actually do a lot with his
legs. He just
rarely shows it and it's not
I think he's is athletic outside the pocket with
you know and can do a lot of the same things. Patrick
Mahomes has done. He has a done it and showed it yet. He's
played more with in his system and and and style.
No, but I think he's the best quarterback in the league.
Now,
look, Palmer's opinion, and this is what caught me
yesterday when I looked at it. But Palmer's opinion
relies heavily on the assumption
that Patrick Mahomes is freelancing more than he should
the comment that,
you know, when there's a guy who's yeah, who didn't get open
before? So you're not going to trust him this time, you're
going to take off and run the ball, instead of trust him to
get open. How much of that is freelancing and how much of it
is properly anticipating that today.
Receiver on the outside. Who isn't your March? A sortie Higgins.
Isn't going to win the one-on-one matchup. So I have
to plan accordingly before I I stare him down because I know
he's not getting open today. Yeah, there's a fine line there
that between freelancing and running the offense definitely
definitely and you got to have, you
got a bit, have a little freelance this day and age in
the NFL unless you're on like the most perfect team there is
and the pass protection is perfect and okay, maybe you
don't have to do that.
But you know, that's just not really the really reality
the league right now. Twenty twenty two twenty twenty twenty three,
right? And I think you're you know
Hey listen we all know Mahomes has more of a
inclination to freelance especially early on in his career.
All right, we know that. Yes
but we also know this is where I don't love this all the time
and I and Carson Palmer's, not trying to blame anybody, hear
anything to.
But for whatever reason, Patrick Mahomes doesn't get
like the credit he deserves for. Like I don't know. Every
year he throws like 40 touchdowns and he's Can
single-digit interceptions
and he's makes a phenomenal decisions
and just because,
you know, where I'd push back with Carson Palmer and
I understand what he's saying he's got, he's trying to say,
Joe burrow plays the position more by the book, and that's
what Carson Palmer likes.
And okay, I get that. But this is where I have these
arguments, and I have these, even with X quarterbacks in
the NFL. Just because he plays the way you like him too. And he
plays it more by the book how you see. It does not make him
better.
I'm sorry. You know it does not the proofs in the pudding here
and Burrows. Awesome. I mean burrow is arguably the second
best quarterback in football now right? Maybe you could say
he passed Josh Allen this year. He's the man like
you're saying, but I'm not ready to say he's the best
quarterback in football.
When we just saw a guy have one of the greatest years in
the history of football at the quarterback position, he just
won his second. Super Bowl his second. Super Bowl MVP
and his second regular season MVP.
Yes bro. Bye. I, the book more
surgical maybe that way within the offense, I'm not going to
say he's better than been a guy that's really, really special
and Patrick Mahomes right now,
The one thing that impressed me this year about burrow the way
he elevates his game in the post right now, some would look
at that and say well he should play that way from Week 1,
through week 18. Why does he wait until the postseason? But
there's something that comes over him
in the postseason, where it's a fearlessness
he doesn't back off, he doesn't get careful. He doesn't do
the Aaron Rodgers thing that you. And I have talked after several
years where your hypersensitive to every potential mistake,
he's going for the jugular, every chance he can get and he
just elevates him.
Self and look, he had, he had a chance to drive, there was
a moment late in the AFC Championship game where
it felt inevitable,
that the Bengals were going to yet, again beat the Chiefs
and Chris Jones did a couple of Chris Jones things
and shut down Joe burrow. And then we had the hit on
the sidelines from Josephus. I that put the Chiefs in field goal
range of felt like we were going to overtime and felt like
that thing was going to be decided in an extra session
that's how close it was. So it's not like the gap between the
Angles. And Chiefs
is all that great
and if anything when they get together,
Joe burrow does have something special
but but
it just felt more like a football coaches tank like as
of right. Well clothed me, want a guy who's gonna run your
offense run my offense and Joe borough is more within
the buoys of the offense. That is doing great things that way
Mahomes has to go beyond the offense to do great things. But
so what, so what the exact going beyond the boundaries?
The offense and doing great things. He's not running around
and making a bunch of mistakes. Exactly. He's freelancing when
he needs to
and he's doing great things when he does exactly
and he's leading the NFL and touchdowns and he's leading
the NFL and yards and his completion, percentage
is barely less than Joe Burrows
and he threw for
almost eight hundred yards more
and he has only 21 more completions
so and then he does not have Jim Archer.
Artie Higgins or Tyler Boyd. So again, Joe Burrows the man
but like, I think what we're saying here Mahomes is like,
are already in this special room in the Hall of Fame,
like we're talking about, he's in the Deion Sanders, one of my
ready for me. He's there already, he's already in
the special room within the special room with the Hall of Fame.
So like, again a love, Joe Borough. But yeah, I'm not
going to go. As far as Carson Palmer is, I think just because
he doesn't play it by the book the way you know, he's talking
about
Out there does not make them better.
It does not Mahomes does not get enough credit for like,
you're saying all the great decisions and things he does at
the next level at times and
playing the position, the right way. I don't, I think he's
disrespected that way at times and he's the best quarterback
in the game for my money right now.
I think Patrick Mahomes is the closest thing. The NFL has seen
to Michael Jordan. A guy who comes in and changes the way we
think about the position changes, the way that kids play
the position jail bharo,
Isn't changing the way anyone's playing about it.
He's playing the quarterback position as well. As anyone
ever has within the strict, boundaries of what we expect
quarterbacks to do Mahomes has defied. The things
that we expect quarterbacks to do. He moves in a way, they
don't he throws the ball in a way, they don't, he was
revolutionized the quarterback position the way, Michael
Jordan, revolutionized, basketball
unlocking, a new universe of things you can do with your
body. So all the kids out there, we've been saying this
for years. All the kids out there, watch what Patrick
Mahomes does just like in the 80s. They watch the things,
Michael Jordan did, and they said, we're going to go try
these things
and some of us can do it and most of us can't, but the ones
who can are unlocking this new potential. That's why I can't
wait to see
this generation of kids. Now
how many of them have the skillset have the ability? They
wouldn't have known that they had if they didn't see Pat
Mahomes doing it, the stuff that your kid does that drives,
you crazy act. Like gonna be kids out there that do that
stuff.
They do it well like Mahomes does, and we're going to have
multiple Patrick my Holmes's in the future years of watching
football, at least. Yeah, at least I hope at least. At
least, I hope that this Talent he
has, Isn't So freakishly rare that. No one else is gonna
have. Yeah, well, he's a jump-off. He's a guy that's
ahead of his time, right? I mean, is he just is for all
the reasons you just said
and yeah he's going to raise the level of play at that
position throughout because you have cut kids are gonna owe me.
Try throwing it like this, let me do that. Oh, let me do.
This Escape move. I've seen all my home's do it. It's only
going to make the better. We're already seeing it. The guy
that's going to be one of the top two picks next year in
the draft Kaleb Williams at USC. He plays like a
like a Mahomes and that's it's just like, oh,
you know, we used to look at like 10 years ago, man, go man,
30-footers, people are shooting 30 Footers in the MBA, and
that's crazy. And then all sudden Steph Curry came, and
I did it in his sleep and now everyone's like, hey, 30
Footers are
good for the NBA, everybody shoot him.
That's
Like Patrick Mahomes is doing for the NFL. You're right. He's
a poster child for a number of unbelievable things and
he came in the league and won. The MVP is first year playing
with 50 touchdown passes its he's a special special person
borough is too. I'm just not ready to say. He's better than
Patrick would homes right now.
Not after that year,
not after taking his team to the Super Bowl beating a team
that's better than his team in the Super Bowl. Why you're not
100% healthy. I'm definitely not going there right now.
Now, in that discussion,
Yeah, two Super Bowl MVPs to regular season MVPs, and they
did it the hard way both times behind in the second half. Both
games came back, and it's Mahomes
it's exactly what we saw. Coming,
two months ago, as we were getting ready for the Super
Bowl, the Eagles are the better team, but the Chiefs have
Mahomes
and he has proven, he can
erase the difference between
the talent Gap. Yeah. From,
from the Eagles,
to the Chiefs, or the 49ers to the Chiefs, or Whoever they
face the next time they go to the Super Bowl, right? And
the Chiefs Mahomes is good enough to overcome it and I think
burrow is too but you gotta win a Super Bowl
of all these other guys out there. And Chris, I think we've
both come to a loose consensus as to who the franchise
quarterbacks are right now, changes all the time.
But right now, Mahomes
jobber, oh, Josh hollan,
Justin Herbert, jail and hurts Trevor. Lawrence
six of them.
And the other five who aren't Patrick Mahomes
are at a lower level until one of them gets a ring,
you got to get a ring
or a regular season MVP trophy
to catch to even begin to get in the conversation on tier 1.
You know, you're doing your tears with your draft picks,
right? We're doing tears with the franchise. Quarterbacks
tier one is Mahomes tier 2 is burrowing alunite,
tier 3 is hurts
and Herbert Herbert, right? Trevor Lawrence
Since then, maybe I'm fair. Right? Yeah, and I Parts is
close to tier 2 Hertz is kind of between two and three. Yeah,
I don't know if I'd be ready to put them there, but I think
you're, you know, you're on the right track there.
Your clothes and
Lamar, I'm certainly gonna
throw Lamar clothes into that conversation. He's
he's On The Fringe, he's got a good. Yeah, he's got, he got to
get a contract. He's got to stay healthy. That's right,
that's the biggest thing. I mean, yeah,
fair or not fair or not, you get injured in December and you
don't show up for the rest of the year, that that That it
hurts here. How can how can you do make your legacy in January
if you're not playing in January? That's so that's
fair that that it hurts. It hurts your qualification for
short list franchise quarterback.
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