Kansas City Chiefs fans will remember where they were and what they were doing when Patrick Mahomes was drafted for the rest of their lives. At the time, fans were mostly just excited that the team finally drafted a quarterback in the first round, something they hadn't done since Todd Blackledge scarred them in 1983.
After a year of sitting on the bench, Mahomes took over as the starter in 2018 and the rest is history. The Chiefs went to seven straight AFC Championship games with Mahomes leading the way and won three Super Bowls (and attended two others) as well.
We've all heard various stories about how Mahomes to the Chiefs came to be. Mike Borgonzi, who was serving as the Chiefs director of player personnel during the 2017 draft and is now the general manager of the Titans, was talking to Peter Schrager about the pick and his story is a good one.
"[Veach] was watching -- Le'Raven Clark was a tackle for Texas Tech," Borgonzi said. "... that's who he was watching. And then he started to, you know, see this quarterback. He's like, 'Wow, look at this throw, look at this throw.' ... Veach is always big with the videos and stuff on his phone so he starts filming it, starts shooting it over to Andy [Reid]... Andy's probably like... 'Dude, it's May right now, slow down.' But he was relentless with it. We had to keep it, you know, as quiet as possible for, you know, through the whole fall. But we pretty much knew, I think, during the fall that we were going with the pick. The night of the draft... We're all on pins and needles, just trying to get up there. And then we finally, you know, found a trade partner with Buffalo at 10, there was some rumors that we were trying to trade up. And I think we might have leaked out that we were trading up for a linebacker that night. Some people took the bait on that one."
Chiefs were always planning on taking Patrick Mahomes in first round of 2017 draft
Borgonzi revealed that the Chiefs basically knew they were going to take Mahomes even before most people had considered him to be a first-round prospect. He wasn't a well-known name before his junior year but his performance that year for the Red Raiders absolutely put him on draft analyst's boards. The Chiefs knew even before then that he was their guy though.
It's obviously worked out well for the Chiefs. Before Mahomes, they counted on castoffs from other teams (specifically the 49ers) and the success did not follow. As soon as they drafted their own guy, however, it was a completely different story for this franchise.
Mahomes changed the narrative of the Chiefs forever, turning them from a team typically one-and-done playoff team to a Super Bowl contender. The fact that Veach was onto him long before anyone else makes this story even cooler.