In 2017, three or four quarterbacks were expected to be selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. As the draft drew closer, Patrick Mahomes grew more confident that he would be one of them.
“As the process went on, I felt like I was moving up in the draft,” Mahomes said. on the podcast his teammate, Travis Kelce, hosts with his brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce. “I’ve had a few teams say they’re going to draft me, and that’s true. It’s not like these coaches are making this up. I spoke to them during the draft process and they said “Hey, if you’re here, we’ll take you.”
But Mahomes knew where he wanted to go, so he took action himself.
“I kind of gave the Chiefs a little inside information,” Mahomes said. “I was like, ‘Hey, if you let me go…’ At the time, I didn’t know the Saints, but I was like, ‘If you let me go at 12 or younger, I’m going to be drafted by someone else. So I gave the Chiefs a little bit of information about it because I wanted to be here.”
Eventually, the Chiefs reached a deal with the Buffalo Bills for the No. 10 overall pick, trading picks Nos. 27 and 91, along with their 2018 first-round pick, for the right to draft Mahomes. But Mahomes also got some extra help to make sure he ends up in Kansas City. That help came in the form of former Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy.
“The first day I met Coach [Andy] Reid was at the facility. We had the meetings, like the top 30 tours. So I stayed in there for about five hours. It just goes through games, goes through games. I’ll just give you the whole scoop: Matt Nagy, who was the offensive coordinator then, he really liked me. So he gave me the plays they were going to play the day before,” Mahomes said. “So, of course, I crashed the meeting. I stayed up all night studying these pieces.”
The rest is NFL history, as Mahomes and Reid quickly became one of the best quarterback coaching duos we’ve ever seen. Nagy, meanwhile, would become the head coach of the team that retired the first quarterback from the board (Mitch Trubisky) in 2017, the Chicago Bears. He spent four years there, but was fired after the 2021 season. Now he’s back in Kansas City as Mahomes’ quarterbacks coach.
