Those interviews that Graham Bensinger did with Alex Smith and Andy Reid earlier this offseason were excellent. I think I’ve finally watched most or all of them. Something very interesting I saw in one of them came out of what Andy Reid said about drafting Patrick Mahomes in this video (8:20 mark):
Reid: “We felt that this was a good player, we had an opportunity to get a quarterback who we think has a chance to be a quarterback down the road. Hard to do when you’re a good football team. To be able to put yourself in that position to do that, so when you have a chance to strike you better strike on that.”
We are nearing a quarterback crisis. As future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning and great players like Phillip Rivers, Carson Palmer among others are starting to move on, the market could be hot this year and next to move up.
This thought process is part of the point I made back when I was in the FanPosts back in June. The Chiefs weren’t likely going to be well positioned for a quarterback with Andy Reid as their coach for the foreseeable future. This is a high-floor football team. If they were going to find their guy, they were going to have to be creative and aggressive, which is why they did it a year early in a QB class that was perceived as weak. Picking in the 20’s makes it difficult to acquire a quarterback, especially if there’s a buyers market.
The Chiefs invested early and are willing to put some sweat equity into developing Mahomes. He’s a rare talent that needs some time to adjust. If they are able to develop him this year, there’s a good chance they already got him at a discount by moving before the QB bubble happens.
Their situation allowed them to do what they did. Job security, an established quarterback that they’ve had success with and a coach who has proven capable of doing it.
For more than one reason, I think this move is going to prove smart by the Chiefs. If you went off Mahomes’ game tape in the preseason, I think we would be talking about Mahomes as a top five pick in a 2018 QB class that is already showing some cracks in its reputation. Getting from the bottom third of the first round to the range Mahomes would be taken in 2018 would have taken way more than what they gave up. The Chiefs didn’t wait til they needed one, and I think they’ll be rewarded for their decision.