Jason Smith: “The only way to compare quarterbacks in different eras is by Super Bowls. Patrick Mahomes threw 585 passes last season. Troy Aikman had one year throwing for over 500 passes in 1997. Every other year he was well below 500. Mahomes is going to be throwing the ball 150+ more times than Aikman per season. Teams ran the football in the 80’s and 90’s, nobody threw the football a ton until the 2010’s besides Warren Moon and Dan Marino. Prolific passers didn’t win back then.You can’t compare a quarterback who finished playing over 20 years ago with a guy playing now.” (Full Audio at Bottom of Page)
Listen to Jason Smith and Mike Harmon discuss the Twitter back-and-forth involving NFL Hall of Famer and Fox Sports commentator Troy Aikman and the Twitter handle @TheAthleticKC, as The Athletic Kansas City made a tweet on Monday that read: “Patrick Mahomes has thrown 36% of Troy Aikman's career touchdowns, in about 8% of the games.”
The tweet wasn’t necessarily meant to take a shot at Aikman, but naturally was received that way, as Aikman responded ‘Talk to me when he has 33% of my Super Bowl titles’, obviously alluding to Mahomes winning one Super Bowl (Aikman won 3).
Jason Smith is tired of comparing modern day quarterbacks with Hall of Famers from different eras, as Aikman’s name appears to be low hanging fruit considering his stats from the 80’s and 90’s would be considered incredibly meager in this day of pass-happy offenses.
Aikman was a six-time Pro Bowler for one of the greatest dynasties in sports history. He finished with 165 touchdowns and 141 INTs. His single-season career high in yards was 3,405 in 1992 and his single-season career high in touchdown passes was 23 also in 1992.
2018 NFL MVP Mahomes threw 50 last season alone and already has 10 through 3 games this year. Mahones is averaging 3.0 touchdown passes per game for his career and would be on pace to pass Aikman in touchdowns at some point during the 2021 season.
Check out the audio below as Jason details why we need to STOP comparing guys in the 80’s and 90’s to guys in 2019, where even marginal talents like Andy Dalton can notch 4,000-yard and 30-touchdown seasons.