Joe Montana, Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady are in an exclusive quarterbacking club. (AP)

After the Kansas City Chiefs shut down the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC championship game to book another trip to the Super Bowl, social media was buzzing about Taylor Swift Patrick Mahomes — specifically, where he ranks all-time among quarterbacks. It’s a legitimate question, even though he has played just seven years in the NFL and just six as a starter. What Mahomes has done in that short time — individually and with his team — absolutely places him in the conversation with the greats.

Mahomes, 28, will make his fourth Super Bowl start in Las Vegas, the most for any quarterback before the age of 30. He has 14 playoff wins, tied for the third most by any quarterback. (Only Tom Brady, with 35, and Joe Montana, with 16, have more.) He has led Kansas City to six straight AFC championship games and two Super Bowl titles, earning MVP honors in both wins. Mahomes also was the league MVP in 2018 and 2022. Only Brady and Montana have also won at least two Super Bowls while claiming two Super Bowl MVP trophies and two regular season MVP awards. Kansas City has a chance to become the ninth back-to-back Super Bowl champion in NFL history and the first since the New England Patriots in the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

It’s Brady, the quarterback of those Patriots teams, who stands in the way of Mahomes being considered the greatest quarterback of all time. But after digging a bit deeper into their careers, it should be clear that Mahomes’s case can’t be easily dismissed.

For example, Mahomes has clearly been a better passer than Brady during the regular season to this point in his career. Comparing their first six seasons as starters, Mahomes averages more passing yards per game and has a higher completion rate, a higher passer rating and a lower sack rate than Brady. To be fair, Mahomes is playing during a time when teams are passing more often, but even after adjusting for that, Mahomes comes out well ahead of Brady. During the first six seasons Brady was a starter, the league-average passer rating was 80.1 and Brady’s rating was 88.4. Over the same period for Mahomes, his passer rating was 103.7 compared with a league average of 91.0. (Mahomes has the second-best career passer rating in NFL history, a fraction below that of Aaron Rodgers.)

Any conversation about the best quarterback of all time must acknowledge Brady’s postseason success, which in many corners supersedes everything else. But that argument rests on longevity and accumulated excellence. In a game-by-game playoff comparison, Mahomes does just fine.

During Brady’s first 17 playoff starts, his performance was worth an estimated five points more per game than we would expect based on the down, distance and field position of each play, per TruMedia. Mahomes was worth almost 10 more points per game than expected over his first 17 playoff starts, meaning he has been nearly twice as valuable as Brady during those first 17 playoff appearances despite both men compiling 14-3 records.

Where does the extra value come from? Mahomes threw just seven interceptions in his first 17 playoff starts compared with 12 for Brady. A whopping 39 percent of Mahomes’s playoff passing attempts converted first downs compared with 33 percent for Brady in his first 17 playoff games. Mahomes also had more touchdown passes in those games (39 vs. 26) and helped his receivers average significantly more yards after completions (5.8 vs. 1.9). The regular season shows a similar disparity during each player’s first 96 starts. Brady was worth four points more per game than expected in that span; Mahomes was worth nine points more per game than expected.

In fact, Mahomes has a slightly better record than Brady in those first 96 regular season starts while also besting him in completion rate, passer rating, touchdown-to-interception ratio and sack rate.

The bottom line is that, to the equivalent point in their careers, Mahomes has been more valuable than Brady. Perhaps you can’t place him ahead of Brady because we don’t know what the rest of his career will look like — Brady excelled well into his 40s — but we should at least be able to agree that Mahomes is already a Hall of Famer and deserves inclusion (along with Brady) on the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks. The real debate is who joins them.

Maybe Montana, who blossomed in Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense during the San Francisco 49ers’ dynasty. Despite not having the strongest arm, Montana’s accuracy, mobility and ability to throw catchable balls made him exceptional. Montana’s clutch performances against tough NFC competition and his flawless Super Bowl record — the 49ers won all four Super Bowls he played in — contribute to his claim as one of the greatest quarterbacks. His postseason run from 1988 to 1990, with an eight-game stretch of recording a 100-plus passer rating — something no one has done before or since — solidifies his legendary status.

Peyton Manning should also be considered. His impact extends beyond his numerous records and record five MVP trophies. He transformed quarterback play by taking control at the line of scrimmage, constantly adjusting plays to outwit his opponents. Two Super Bowl rings and clutch postseason play affirm his greatness, with his 2004 campaign standing out as the all-time best. He threw for 4,557 yards and broke Dan Marino’s record of 48 touchdown passes with 49 in 15 games.

Finally, Johnny Unitas revolutionized the position, introducing the two-minute drill and precision passing. He led the Baltimore Colts to three championships and earned three MVP awards. He remains the only player to lead the NFL in passing touchdowns for four consecutive seasons.

Other names commonly mentioned in such discussions include Marino, Rodgers, Roger Staubach and John Elway. All played far longer than Mahomes has, as did Montana, Manning and Unitas. But the body of work the Chiefs’ star has compiled over the past six seasons demands his inclusion in any conversation about the greatest quarterbacks of all time.