Did Patrick Mahomes Draft Himself to Kansas City?
Patrick Mahomes is once again the MVP favorite as we head toward the final stretch of the NFL season. Mahomes has led Kansas City to a 9-2 start, which is the best in the AFC. He is also on pace to break the single-season passing yard record. Already a Super Bowl Champion and MVP, Mahomes has quickly become the face of the NFL. So when looking back at the 2017 NFL Draft, it seems like the Chiefs pulled off one of the best draft picks of all time. However, did Patrick Mahomes draft himself to Kansas City?
Travis Kelce welcomed his quarterback on his podcast, New Heights, for this week with his brother Jason Kelce. During the latest “New Heights” episode, Mahomes unleashed a ton of information regarding his pre-draft visits with the Chiefs. Many have heard that current general manager Brett Veach was the one pushing for Mahomes before the draft. Even with Veach pushing for Mahomes, another name was trying to help Mahomes become a Chief.
“The first day that I met coach Reid was at the facility — we have the meetings, the top-30 visits,” Mahomes said on the podcast. “That was the first time I really met him. At that time, there was no time limit, so I was in there for like five hours. He’s just going through plays. I’m going to just give you all the inside scoop. Matt Nagy, who’s our quarterbacks coach now, was our offensive coordinator then. He really liked me, so he gave me the plays they were going to go over the night before.
“So, of course, I crushed the meeting. I stayed up all night studying those plays. The rest was history, man. I met coach Reid, he went over the plays, we went and had some lunch. He had a couple of cheeseburgers and then we went back and I looked back on the board and I had seen that I was a guru, in a sense, because I knew every single play and every check.”
Nagy loved the upside of Mahomes and wanted him in Kansas City. However, it was all up to how the board fell during the draft. Did the general manager at the time, John Dorsey, want to give up the assets to acquire Mahomes? Did he know what other teams had him atop their board?
Ultimately, Mahomes gave a little tip to the Chiefs before the draft to tell them what other teams were looking at him.
“I kind of gave a little inside info to the Chiefs and was like ‘Hey, if y’all let me go 12 or below, I’m going to get drafted by someone else,” Mahomes said. “So I gave the Chiefs a little bit of info on that because I wanted to be here. I don’t know who was at 12 that time, but I knew right around there was where I was going to get drafted. My agent talked to Brett Veach and the Chiefs’ staff. I remember at about pick nine or 10, Veach sent my agent a little picture of a Red Raider with the ‘Guns Up,’ so I knew the Chiefs were drafting me.”
Chiefs fans praised Veach for pushing for Mahomes before the 2017 Draft. However, Kansas City fans need to praise Nagy for the inside scoop he gave Mahomes before his pre-draft interview.
With Nagy tipping the playbook to Mahomes and the former Red Raider giving the front office a heads-up on what they needed to do to land him, it made Kansas City go all in to draft him. It has been rumored that Arizona and New Orleans were going to select Mahomes if he was still on the board. However, the Chiefs were the winners of the sweepstakes of the best quarterback in the entire NFL.
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