Following the 2017 NFL Draft, USA Today said Patrick Mahomes was “nowhere near ready to play in the NFL. And, honestly, he may never be.”
The Sporting News said the Chiefs “set up a bad tone in this draft” by trading up to take Mahomes, who had been a star at Texas Tech.
Those pundits look foolish now because Mahomes is a three-time Super Bowl MVP and two-time NFL MVP.
But Chiefs coach Andy Reid said last week on Mike Krzyzewski’s SiriusXM show, “Basketball & Beyond with Coach K,” that he wasn’t certain Mahomes’ ceiling was quite that high.
“You don’t know really what you’re gonna get. I mean, you think you’re gonna get this, but that’s a big jump, transition,” Reid said. “There hadn’t been a lot of guys that had come from that type of an offense and played in the National Football League. Matter of fact, there are really none. The ones that had had failed or been backups. So here he comes.
“After his first game (at Texas Tech), Brett Veach is dropping the CDs on my desk and on John Dorsey’s desk, who at the time was the general manager and so we got a chance to see him grow because of Brett. I mean, Brett said, ‘He’s the best I’ve ever seen at the college level.’ And we’re going well, ‘He’s at Texas Tech, he’s running a little different offense from what we’re doing,’ although Alex Smith had kind of taken us to that area with the offense.”
The Chiefs used one of their Top 30 Visits to speak with Mahomes and were blown away.
“So we brought him in for an interview,” Reid said. “You get 30 of those and we brought him in and talked to him and I went yeah, ‘This guy is unbelievable. ‘What a sharp kid and great way about him. And like I said he was smart. So anyways, we were able to trade up for him and we had to kind of navigate that. Brett had a pretty good feel on how to do that.
“We navigated through the draft and got ourselves in a position where we could take him, and I know we jumped a couple guys (teams in the draft). Now I know because I’ve talked to them, but we’re able to get in position there and it’s worked out great.”
The Chiefs learned quickly they had something special in Mahomes, even though Smith was the starter. While playing with the scout team, Mahomes turned heads with his tremendous throws.
Mahomes also soaked up whatever he could from Smith, and Reid raved about Smith’s influence. That tutorship included big and small things. In fact, Reid joked that Mahomes should buy Smith a really nice gift.
“You could see it right away in his rookie year that he had something. Alex Smith was phenomenal for him,” Reid said. “And not that Alex even had to go out of his way, he just had to be Alex. And Alex ends up having his best year.
“And then at the same time he taught Patrick how to handle himself in the classroom. He taught him how to handle his diet. Alex is married to a beautiful gal and with a couple of beautiful kids, and he taught him that part, he included him on that. And I didn’t ask Alex to do any of that. He just did it. Pat should be buying him a big house for all of that.”
