Chiefs Kingdom’s appreciation for Patrick Mahomes only grows in draft season

Opening night of the NFL Draft is one of the most exhilarating events on the football calendar.

With all the intrigue and unpredictability, football fans, players, and executives across the league and college systems all experience a wide range of emotions. Excitement about who each team might pick. Optimism that a certain player can help their team improve. Hope that they can make a move that brings them a Super Bowl.

For me, though, there is one particular sentiment that has always come to the forefront come draft time in years of late: appreciation. It’s the appreciation that the Kansas City Chiefs have Patrick Lavon Mahomes II as their quarterback. To be fair, I actually feel that almost year-round, but it is something that has been especially amplified heading into this year’s draft.

The main reason I feel this way is because the Chiefs are in such an enviable position at the quarterback position. Not only do they have the best player at the position, but they also have long-term certainty there too. They know exactly what they have in Mahomes for the next nine seasons. It is a position that hardly any other teams in the league can say they are in. In fact, most teams are at the entirely opposite end of the spectrum.

Take the New York Jets, for example, who just traded for a 39-year-old quarterback with no real guarantees that he will spend more than a year at the organization. Or the Baltimore Ravens, who are in a standoff with their franchise quarterback in Lamar Jackson over a contract dispute. What about the New York Giants, who are about to pay mid-level quarterback Daniel Jones an average of $40 million over the next four seasons?

And how about the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals, and San Francisco 49ers—teams that invested premium draft picks in the position to take Justin Fields, Kyler Murray, and Trey Lance only to now be left wondering if those guys really are the future of their franchise?

And all that is before we even get to the teams who are about to draft a quarterback on draft night in the hopes of landing a player that would even be half as good as Mahomes has been.

The Carolina Panthers gave up a boatload to Chicago to grab the first overall pick, sending the Bears their first-round pick this year, a second-round pick (No. 61), a 2024 first-round selection, a 2025 second-round pick, and D.J. Moore. Comparatively, the Chiefs gave up a first-round pick swap in 2017, a third-round pick (No. 91 overall) that same year as well as their 2018 first-round pick to the Bills to draft the most incredible quarterback the league has ever seen.

The Houston Texans—arguably the most quarterback-needy team in the league and a franchise that has been in the doldrums for the last three years—now aren’t even sure if they want to take a QB with the second pick of the draft. Bryce Young has questions about if he is physically built to handle the NFL, while C.J. Stroud has seemingly dropped from the top-two quarterback down to number four all because of a poor S2 test score. What about Will Levis, Anthony Richardson, or Hendon Hooker? Who would be the best choice out of those three?

I have no idea. And, to be honest, the teams really don’t know either. They might have an inkling of who they believe is more likely to succeed, but in the end, it is all just a gamble.

The Chiefs took their gamble back in the 2017 draft when they moved up to get Mahomes and they struck gold and won the lottery at the same time. As a result, Kansas City is in such an incredible spot at quarterback with Mahomes and it is never, ever too often to appreciate that.