On Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, the two-time defending and unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs will host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on ESPN's Monday Night Football.
That's the main billing, but perhaps an even spicier storyline is the matchup of two former standout Big 12 quarterbacks. Tampa Bay's Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs will go against each other for the sixth time in their careers (twice as collegians and three times in the NFL)
While Mahomes has had the more celebrated NFL career, which includes three Super Bowl wins and two NFL Most Valuable Player Awards, and has won all three previous NFL matchups, Mayfield defeated Mahomes both times the two faced each other in college.
Ironically, Mayfield began his college career at Texas Tech, which is where Mahomes was a star for three seasons after Mayfield had transferred to Oklahoma. Mayfield walked on to the Texas Tech program in 2013 and was the first true freshman quarterback to start an FBS opener at the quarterback position. He started the first five games that season for the Red Raiders. In the fifth game that season, Mayfield injured his knee and was replaced as the starter by Davis Webb.
Webb was the Texas Tech starting quarterback Mahomes' freshman season, but when Webb went down with an injury early in the 2015 season, Mahomes assumed the starting role. The rest, as they say, is history.
Because of the NCAA transfer rule at the time, Mayfield was forced to sit out a year before becoming eligible to play at Oklahoma. As a result, Mayfield and Mahomes did not face each other in the 2014 season. Despite throwing for nearly 400 yards and four touchdowns, Mahomes lost to Oklahoma 42-30 in 2014. The following year Mayfield and Mahomes went against each other for the first time. Neither quarterback threw for more than 240 yards, but Mahomes was intercepted four times in a one-sided Oklahoma 63-27 win in 2015 in Norman.
The 2016 matchup between Texas Tech with Mahomes and Oklahoma with Mayfield, however, that will be remembered as one of the greatest college football games of all time, especially if you like offense. That contest is also the first thing that comes to mind whenever the two quarterbacks go up against each other in the NFL, and Monday night will be the fourth such encounter.
The two teams combined for 1,708 yards of offense and scored touchdowns on 10 straight drives in the second half, the last nine of which were 75 yards in length. It was one of those games where you knew that the team that possessed the ball last was going to win. And it was Oklahoma that had the ball last, but it was only to run out the clock and preserve a 66-59 victory following a Texas Tech touchdown with 1:38 remaining that cut the OU advantage to seven points.
Mahomes three 88 passes in the game, completing 52 of them for an incredible 734 yards and five touchdowns. On the other side, Mayfield passed for 545 yards (27 of 36) and seven touchdowns with no interceptions. Joe Mixon rushed for a career high 263 yards in the game and accounted for five of the Oklahoma touchdowns (two rushing and three receiving).
Incredibly, both teams produced exactly 854 yards of offense in that epic college contest. After the 2016 season, Mahomes declared for the NFL Draft and became the first-round pick of the Chiefs and the 10th player selected overall. Mayfield was a Heisman finalist in 2016 and won the award the following year. He was the No. 1 player selected overall by the Cleveland Browns in the 2018 NFL Draft.
Mahomes is in his eighth season with the Kansas City Chiefs. Mayfield has played with four teams (Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in seven NFL seasons.