Michael Jordan revolutionized basketball by showing everyone things we didn’t previously realize the human body could do. Patrick Mahomes has done that for quarterbacks.
It’s something Simms and I said on PFT Live from the moment Mahomes took the NFL by storm. His off-schedule, nutty-platform, rubber-armed throws have shown plenty of young football quarterbacks what they can do — if they have the ability to do it.
Enter Caleb Williams. He was only 16 when Mahomes arrived on the scene. Williams saw what Mahomes can do, and Williams was able to incorporate that into his own game.
It helped that he’s physically able to do it. It also helped that Williams could see how it can go for someone who can do it.
And we’re now seeing it in the NFL. We saw it on Saturday. Whether it’s rolling left and lofting a deep ball with touch to receiver Rome Odunze or rolling right and firing a piss missile to the back corner of the end zone (Odunze had stepped out of bounds) or running to the left and using the threat of a cobra-strike throw to freeze defenders just enough so that he could weave through them for a touchdown on the ground, Williams is the first player since Mahomes got to the NFL to play like Mahomes.
Yes, there’s a long way to go and much work to be done. But the skills are obvious, and the similarities to Mahomes’s playing style are impossible to miss.
In 20 days, we’ll see how that translates to a game that counts, when the Titans come to town for Week 1. And then we all get to see it the following Sunday night, when Williams goes to Houston to face the Texans and C.J. Stroud on NBC and Peacock.