From Mahomes to Jordan: The 10 best 7-year peaks of the past 40 years

Thursday marked the seven-year anniversary of the Kansas City Chiefs trading Alex Smith to make Patrick Mahomes their starting quarterback. The rest, as they say, has been history.

The Chiefs are making an unprecedented fifth Super Bowl appearance in six seasons, and Mahomes is the first QB in history to make five trips before turning 30.

His greatness had us thinking about the best individual seven-year runs. What other athletes have dominated to the point that there’s little debate about anyone being better. Several athletes might come to mind, but a select few meet the criteria.

With that, here are the 10 best seven-year peaks of the past four decades in team sports.

*Peaks listed in chronological order

1. Wayne Gretzky (1981-87)

It didn’t take long for Gretzky to establish himself as the best player in the NHL. He won the Hart Memorial Trophy (league MVP) in the 1979-80 season, which was the Edmonton Oilers’ first season in the NHL and Gretzky’s second with the team, joining them when they were in the WHL a year prior.

Gretzky’s greatness only took off from there. He led the league in points in each of the next seven seasons, winning MVP each year and adding three Stanley Cup titles in that span. Gretzky scored at least 160 points in each of those seven seasons, crossing the 200-point mark four times. 

In most of these seasons, Gretzky scored at least 50 more points than whoever finished second. He was a whopping 79 points ahead of Paul Coffey when he scored 205 points in the 1983-84 season; when he put up an NHL record 215 points in 1985-86, he finished 74 points ahead of Mario Lemieux.

To further illustrate Gretzky’s dominance, those who played NHL fantasy hockey adjusted the rules around him. Some fantasy leagues prohibited Gretzky from even being used. In most leagues, Gretzky became two draftable players, either picking him by just the goals he scored or the assists he dished out. He led the league in both stats five times from 1981-1987.

2. Jerry Rice (1988-94)

Rice’s prime was about as long as anyone in the history of the NFL, which made narrowing down his peak especially tough. By his second season, Rice began a run in which he was named first-team All-Pro 10 times in 11 seasons. In his third season, Rice won Offensive Player of the Year after recording a then-NFL record 22 touchdowns in 12 games.

The marriage between his success and the San Francisco 49ers’ began to perfectly align one year later. Rice helped close out the Niners’ dynasty in the 1980s with consecutive titles in the 1988 and 1989 seasons. He took home MVP honors in the first of those two Super Bowl wins, hauling in 11 receptions for a Super Bowl record 215 yards and a touchdown against the Bengals. A year later, after leading the league in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns, Rice had 148 receiving yards and three touchdowns in San Francisco’s rout of the Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV.

Rice didn’t miss a beat when Steve Young replaced Joe Montana in 1991, topping the NFL in receiving touchdowns for a third straight season. In 1993, he led the NFL in receiving yards and touchdowns en route to winning his second Offensive Player of the Year award.

Rice added another ring to close out this seven-year run in 1994, recording 149 receiving yards and three touchdowns in the 49ers’ Super Bowl win over the Chargers. The greatest wide receiver of all time then closed out what was really a nine-year apex by registering a career-high 1,848 yards in 1995. 

3. Michael Jordan (1990-93; 95-98)

Of course, Jordan was going to be on this list. He redefined individual greatness while leading the Chicago Bulls to two separate three-peats in the 1990s, which was briefly interrupted by his first retirement before falling short in his return late in the 1994-95 season. His entire Bulls career could be considered his prime, while his apex had commenced by his third season. The rings, though, came a few years later.

His Airness won six titles and four league MVPs during his final six full seasons with the Bulls. He also led the league in scoring each year, topping 30 points four times. Jordan was the only player in the league to cross that threshold between 1990-2000. 

His full list of accomplishments is too long to cite here, even if whittled down to the postseason. But he won Finals MVP six times while never allowing his team to play a Game 7. In 1998, he prevented that scenario and closed out the Bulls dynasty by executing arguably the greatest end-of-game sequence in sports history: layup/steal/jumper to beat the Utah Jazz in the final seconds of Game 6.

4. Pedro Martínez (1997-2003)

Pitchers can have dominant seasons or pockets in their careers, where they stand above the rest in the sport. Arguably no pitcher in history, though, has a greater seven-year stretch than Martínez’s from the late 1990s to early 2000s. 

It was the height of baseball’s steroid era, and the charismatic righty was at his absolute best. Two years after winning his first Cy Young with the Montreal Expos in 1997, Martínez won the American League pitching triple crown for the Boston Red Sox with a 2.07 ERA that was 1.37 runs better than the next-closest pitcher. He was snubbed in the MVP vote that year, finishing second at a time when pitchers struggled to even earn consideration for the award.

His Cy Young campaign the following year was even more historic. Martínez again paced the league in strikeouts and ERA, with his 1.74 mark less than half and nearly two runs better than runner-up Roger Clemens. His 11.7 bWAR led all of MLB, while his 0.737 WHIP is the lowest in MLB history. 

Over the next three years, Martínez posted the lowest ERA in baseball and highest winning percentage while earning two top-three finishes in Cy Young (voter fatigue, perhaps?). Pedro also did his part in the postseason during this stretch, going 4-1 with a 3.10 ERA as the Red Sox made two trips to the ALCS.

5. Barry Bonds (1998-2004)

As Martinez was dominating hitters in the American League, Bonds dominated National League pitchers in even more historic fashion. The 15-season interval between the first and last of Bonds’ seven MVP awards makes it impossible to narrow down his peak to seven years. But what he did from 2001 to 2004 has to be included. 

Over those four consecutive MVP seasons — no other player in MLB history has more than three MVPs total — Bonds hit 209 homers and walked 755 times while leading the league in OPS by at least .170 each year. His 1.422 OPS and 232 walks in 2004 are single-season records, both of which he had set two years prior. He also registered the three-highest OPS+ marks of all time during this stretch.

Bonds didn’t log a ton of postseason plate appearances, but he made the most of them in 2002 as he single-handedly carried the San Francisco Giants to the World Series. In those playoffs, Bonds slashed .356/.581/.978 while slugging eight home runs over 17 games.

Messi’s ultimate career accomplishment came in 2022, when he led Argentina to victory at the World Cup. But his best seven-year stretch of soccer came before that.

In the seven seasons between 2008-15, Messi helped Barcelona win five La Ligas, three Copa del Rays and three Champions League titles as he individually dominated. He won five Ballon d’Ors over that stretch, scoring at least one goal per match in three seasons. His 91 goals scored between his time with Barcelona and Argentina in 2012 set the record for a calendar year. 

Messi had 73 goals with Barcelona in the 2011-12 season, which remains a European record for the most goals scored across all competitions at the club level in a single season. Only one other player has scored 60 goals for a European club in a single season since then, with Cristian Ronaldo hitting that mark twice. Messi also crossed the 60-goal threshold in the 2012-13 season. 

Internationally, Messi didn’t have as much team success. But he still helped Argentina reach the 2014 World Cup final, a massive achievement in and of itself, winning the Golden Ball for player of the tournament.

You could throw a dart at any point of James’ career and pick a seven-year stretch and say it’s among the best in NBA history. His run from 2011 to 2018 is probably his greatest. 

After winning back-to-back MVPs with the Cleveland Cavaliers between 2008-10, James miserably fell short in the 2011 NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks. That loss clearly took his play to another level, as he responded with back-to-back league and Finals MVPs. Only Michael Jordan has pulled that off. 

James went on to play in five more Finals in a row, while finishing top-four in MVP voting each season. In 2016, he led the Cavaliers to an improbable Finals victory over the 73-win Golden State Warriors. The Cavs became the first team in NBA history to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the title round, with James posting back-to-back 41-point performances in Games 5 and 6 and a triple-double in Game 7. 

James and the Cavs lost in the Finals in each of the following two years against the Warriors, who now featured Kevin Durant heading a squad with five potential Hall of Famers. While neither series was close, the 2018 iteration included arguably the best game of James’ career, as he went off for 51 points in a Game 1 overtime defeat.

Like several others on this list, there are multiple peaks in Brady’s long and illustrious career. But his most successful stretch came on the back nine.

Following the 2014 season, Brady rallied the New England Patriots from a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter to stun the defending champion Seattle Seahawks and their “Legion of Boom” defense. Two years later, Brady was the MVP runner-up before leading New England to the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. With the Atlanta Falcons leading 28-3 late in the third quarter, Brady guided five consecutive scoring drives as New England won in overtime.

In his age 37-43 seasons, Brady won four Super Bowls, three Super Bowl MVPs and an MVP, testing Father Time unlike any athlete before. When he began that stretch, there were some questions about how much longer he could play at an elite level as the 2013 season was arguably his worst as a starting quarterback. But he helped the Patriots win their first Super Bowl in 10 seasons, leading them to a comeback 

After throwing for a record 505 yards in a Super Bowl defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles the following year, Brady outdueled a young Patrick Mahomes in the AFC Championship Game en route to winning his sixth Super Bowl following the 2018 season.

Two years later, Brady took a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that hadn’t made the playoffs in 13 years to the Super Bowl. He threw 50 touchdowns between the regular season and playoffs, winning his fifth Super Bowl MVP and seventh ring in the process. It was this stretch of play that elevated him to “GOAT” status.

Like the next (and last) person on this list, the 30-year-old Ohtani appears to be in the middle of his apex with no near end in sight. His 2018 Rookie of the Year campaign with the Los Angeles Angels is extraordinary for the mere factor that he became the first player since Babe Ruth an entire century earlier to be in the lineup every day while regularly taking the mound. While his next two seasons were limited by injury, his past four have no historical comparison.

In 2021, Ohtani was selected to start in the All-Star Game — as the pitcher and in the lineup — en route to hitting 46 home runs, registering a 3.18 ERA and winning his first MVP award. The unicorn was even better on the mound in 2022, leading MLB in strikeouts per nine innings while posting a 2.33 ERA. For good measure, he also hit 34 home runs.

That proved to be a relatively quiet year at the plate. Ohtani has led his league in home runs, OPS and OPS+ the past two years while earning two more unanimous MVP selections. During the former, Ohtani was again a dominant ace. In 2024, unable to pitch after undergoing his second elbow reconstruction, Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to amass 50 home runs and 50 steals in the same season. Then, in his first taste of the postseason, he delivered multiple clutch hits to help the Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series. 

Right around the time Brady’s reign ended, Mahomes’ began. While Brady won both of their head-to-head matchups in the postseason, Mahomes’ first seven seasons as a starting quarterback might be the greatest seven-year stretch of any player ever at the position.

The Kansas City Chiefs wunderkind has already won three Super Bowls and two league MVPs, while his five Super Bowl appearances are tied for the second-most ever for a QB.

Mahomes, of course, has also been statistically dominant. He threw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in his first season as a starter. (Only Peyton Manning has done it otherwise.) In 2023, Mahomes became the quickest to 200 touchdown passes; in 2024, the quickest to 30,000 passing yards. His 5.9 touchdown percentage is third all time in the Super Bowl era. His 1.8 interception rate ranks fifth. His 102.1 career passer rating is second. His 288.9 passing yards per game are first.

More importantly, he’s heading a dynasty. The Chiefs are back-to-back champs and winners of three Super Bowls in four seasons, thanks to a plethora of late-game heroics from Mahomes.

He’s the first QB to lead his team to three straight Super Bowls after winning the first two. Next Sunday, he can become the first QB to pull off a three-peat.

Honorable mentions:

Rickey Henderson (1980-86)
Larry Bird (1980-87)
Lawrence Taylor (1981-87)
Diego Maradona (1981-88)
Eric Dickerson (1983-89)
Joe Montana (1984-90)
Magic Johnson (1984-91)
Reggie White (1986-92)
Roger Clemens (1986-92)
Mario Lemieux (1986-93)
Barry Sanders (1991-97)
Greg Maddux (1992-98)
Ken Griffey Jr. (1993-99)
Randy Johnson (1996-02)
Ray Lewis (1997-03)
Shaquille O’Neal (1997-2004)
Tim Duncan (1998-05)
Álex Rodríguez (2001-07)
Kobe Bryant (2002-09)
Albert Pujols (2003-09)
Peyton Manning (2006-13)
Clayton Kershaw (2011-17)
J.J. Watt (2012-18)
Mike Trout (2012-18)
Aaron Donald (2014-20)

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