Since taking over the starting job in 2018 Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has done nothing short of excel. Three Super Bowls, seven AFC Championship Games and seven AFC West titles already mark a first-ballot Hall of Fame resumé before spending a decade in the NFL.
He and Andy Reid have come together to form the next generation's dominant quarterback-head coach duo. This pair has the Chiefs in the thick of title contention every season, having not missed a conference championship since 2017, the last season before Mahomes took over.
This extraordinary run in the latter stages of Reid's career has cemented his legacy as one of the greats in the history of the NFL. But for some it has not completely validated the entirety of his career.
When discussing the current dynamic of quarterbacks and coaches in the league, FS1's Colin Cowherd posited that the success of these modern tandems is mostly driven by the man under center. To make this point, he did not hesitate to call out Reid.
"As great as Andy Reid is, he only started hoisting trophies when he got Patrick Mahomes."
A rather bold take yet one supported in the simple act of looking at the record books. Reid came close on several occasions with the Philadelphia Eagles but never reached the summit.
However, does correlation necessarily imply causation here?
Reid has the fourth most wins of any head coach in NFL history with 273. Mahomes has been around for the best of those victories and certainly the reason for some. But Reid's history of team building and roster development cannot be questioned in full.
And while it's easy to poke and prod at the resumé before Mahomes and make assumptions about how the last decade of his career would have unfolded without him, one can perform the same exercise with Mahomes.
Mahomes is one of the best quarterback talents ever. But he stepped into a highly functional system in Kansas City all constructed by Reid. Would he still have three Super Bowls playing for another franchise?
Going down the rabbit hole of "what ifs" and hypotheticals is a fruitless venture especially considering the outstanding achievement of this duo in their time together. Alone, Mahomes and Reid may still be in the first class of their roles anywhere else in the league.
But together, they have formed one of the great dynasties in the history of the game.