The bigger they are, the harder they fall.Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs dominated the NFL with five trips to the Super Bowl and three victories in the talismanic quarterback’s first seven seasons as a starter.Mahomes has not dealt with such adversity in his pro careerGettyBut after coming agonizingly close to a three-peat — something even Tom Brady‘s New England Patriots couldn’t achieve — the 2025 season was a complete bust, even before Mahomes’ season-ending injury.Brady and Bill Belichick always found a way to bounce back after a down year and kept on going.If Mahomes wants to eclipse the GOAT and his seven rings, he needs to hit the ground running and reverse the slide.Facing the Denver Broncos defense off of a serious injury is a tough ask, and talkSPORT’s Brian T. Smith thinks Kansas City’s star man has a lot to prove.NFL Weekly Newsletter - SIGN UP!talkSPORT is your home for NFL in the UK as we launch our biggest year of coverage yet!2026 promises to be an epic year for NFL on talkSPORT – and we want you to join us for the ride.MORE INFO & SIGN-UP HERE!This season will be our biggest ever with live commentary of 90+ games, including behind-the-scenes access to international games and all three London fixtures, plus bumper coverage of Super Bowl 61 at SoFi Stadium.Exclusive interviews, hard-hitting opinion, latest front-office drama and top breaking news – all delivered straight to your inbox each week.“This is this is his Tom Brady moment, right? This is his second this is the second arc for Patrick Mahomes,” Smith said on The S Word. “This is where you’ve had the blockbusters, you’ve had the hits, you have a couple bad movies, and then you’re either going to become the greatest actor of your generation or you’re going to start making bad Nicolas Cage movies.“I want to see what Patrick Mahomes is going to do because Patrick Mahomes, I mean, we forget but Patrick Mahomes was a baseball player. Patrick Mahomes was doubted. He was a gunslinger. He was Texas Tech. He wasn’t the first overall pick.“Patrick Mahomes has made all of this because of his talent and his drive. This is the first true setback he’s had in the NFL. I want to see how Patrick Mahomes responds to this and if he is going to eventually be the greatest quarterback of all time. It’s a past Brady. It starts this year.”Week 1 could be a tough ride for the Chiefs, and Smith thinks Mahomes will take some time to get a team with several major question marks firing.“He’s coming off two major knee injuries,” he told host Will Gavin. “Not that far removed from those injuries. And he hasn’t done anything really during the preseason. “I think it’s going to take them a while. Travis Kelce is obviously in decline. For me, I I if I was Travis Kelce, I would have retired a couple years ago and enjoyed my incredible life with Taylor Swift and I guess lived in a castle in Ohio.Brady didn’t always have it his own way but he never stayed beat for longGettyMahomes is the closest we have seen to the GOAT’s dominance“But you have Andy Reid. You have an okay wide receiver group. The defense is still good enough. You have [Steve] Spagnuolo. I love the Kenneth Walker addition because that takes pressure off Patrick Mahomes.“But it’s the Denver Broncos. It’s Sean Payton. It’s Bo Nix.That’s a very good Broncos team. It’s the Los Angeles Chargers with Jim Harbaugh and and Justin Herbert. You put all that together and nothing will be given to this Chiefs team anymore. And I think they’re going to have to prove it.”The Chiefs are in a strong division, minus the Las Vegas Raiders, and another year of missing the postseason is a real possibility.“The NFL changes so much every year. It’s such a league of parody. You can go from worst to first in the NFL,” added Smith.“This is the Chiefs team that for me has to prove it because when we go back a year, well, two years ago, what was happening? They were in the Super Bowl versus the Eagles and they were favored going into that game because of the experience. “But the Chiefs were lucky that year. Andy Reid was calling them basically the luckiest team of all time. They’re winning all those last second games. They they never looked right. NFL's Greatest......Ranking the top 10......Quarterbacks of all-time – Can anyone better Tom Brady?Wide receivers of all-time – Does Randy Moss or Jerry Rice come out on top?Running backs of all-time – Stacking Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith and moreTight ends of all-time – How does Travis Kelce compare?“We were doing this show on talkSPORT talking about what’s wrong with the Chiefs, what’s wrong with the Chiefs. The Chiefs for me haven’t really been right in three years when they beat your 49ers in the Super Bowl. “So, you throw that together and I I think they will they will surely be better this year. But until the Chiefs roll off five or six wins, until they start to look at all like the old Chiefs, I will have to be convinced.”Has Mahomes still got it? Monday Night Football would be a great stage for him to show it.Join talkSPORT’s dedicated US Sports YouTube channel The S* Word every Tuesday and Thursday for our brand new NFL shows.On Tuesdays, Will Gavin and US senior reporter Brian T. Smith will debate the biggest talking points from the NFL weekend, while on Thursdays Efe Obada joins the crew to talk to players past and present and break down what to look for across the league.