How Close Can You Get?
Burrow and Mahomes have faced off five times – and all five games have been separated by a field goal or less.
Week 2 of the 2024 National Football League season saw the Kansas City Chiefs record a one-point win when they hosted the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday (US time).
The Chiefs, led by their star quarterback Patrick Mahomes (18-25, 151 passing yards, 2 touchdowns, 2 intercepts), snuck over the line against Joe Burrow (23-36, 258 yards, 2 touchdowns) and the Bengals courtesy of a 51-yard field goal by kicker Harrison Butker as time expired.
This was the fifth time Mahomes and Burrow had faced off, with Mahomes claiming his first regular season win over Burrow to take their head-to-head record to 3-2 in favour of the former Ohio State Buckeye and LSU Tiger.
Mahomes has now won the last two games against Burrow after losing the first three.
Certain NFL fans were quick to notice that the one-point win meant all five match-ups between Mahomes and Burrow had been decided by a field goal (i.e., three points) or less:
Week 17 2021: CIN def KC 34-31
AFC Championship 2021: CIN def KC 27-24
Week 13 2022: CIN def KC 27-24
AFC Championship 2022: KC def CIN 23-20
Week 2 2024: KC def CIN 26-25
The Burrows-Mahomes pairing is now tied for equal fifth on the leaderboard for games decided by a field goal or less, along with Cam Newton-Drew Brees and Peyton Manning-Tom Brady.
Interesting, Newton-Brees did it in five times in 15 games, while Manning-Brady finished within that margin in 17 games.
These three pairs are two behind former AFC North adversaries Ben Roethlisberger and Joe Flacco, whose teams were separated by less than three points in seven of their 19 games.
The collective margin of 13 points across the first five games between Burrow and Mahomes is (unsurprisingly) the lowest of any quarterback pairing’s first five games against each other since the start of the 1999 season.
What I find a little more surprising is who sits second: Geno Smith and Tom Brady, when the two faced off while playing for the New York Jets and the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, respectively, over a 10-year period.
Week 2 2013: NE def NYJ 13-10
Week 7 2013: NYJ def NE 30-27
Week 7 2014: NE def NYJ 27-25
Week 16 2014: NE def NYJ 17-16
Week 10 2022: TB def SEA 21-16
The Mahomes-Burrow record will be fairly hard to beat, unless Mahomes’ current backup Carson Wentz and current Los Angeles Rams starter Matthew Stafford start two games against each other decided by five points or less, or Daniel Jones (New York Giants) and Taylor Heinicke (currently with the LA Chargers) play two games where the collective margin is two or fewer points.
Thanks for reading! The timeframe of this stat is limited based on what data are freely/easily available and/or accessible. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you spot any errors in what I have presented. Apologies to anyone who has already looked at this stat.