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Imagine stumbling upon a future NFL generational quarterback by accident.
Well, that’s exactly what happened to the Kansas City Chiefs, and it’s so far brought the storied franchise three Super Bowls.
The Kingdom is a six-part ESPN Originals documentary series that follows the Chiefs’ quest for a historic three-peat
In ESPN Originals’ ‘The Kingdom’ documentary — a six-part series charting Kansas City’s pursuit of a three-peat — which debuted on Monday, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach discussed how Patrick Mahomes first came across his radar as a potential draft pick.
Mahomes attended Whitehouse High School before entering his freshman season as the backup to Davis Webb at Texas Tech in his home state after then-head coach Kliff Kingsbury recruited him.
After Webb – who is now part of the Denver Broncos coaching staff – picked up an injury, Mahomes took over the starting job, while simultaneously splitting his time with the Red Raiders’ baseball team as a relief pitcher.
Veach found Mahomes while scouting a left tackle
“In 2017, I was co-director of player personnel,” Veach told ESPN. “At the time I didn’t know Patrick Mahomes was a prospect.
“You’re kind of working through different position groups. I started out with tackles and was watching a left tackle prospect from Texas Tech.
As you’re watching the tackle, you’re saying ‘oh that’s a pretty cool throw’ and then you’re like ‘who is this guy?’
“You’re like googling the Texas Tech roster and then looking for number five. ‘Who’s number five? Patrick Mahomes.
‘ All of a sudden you’re down this rabbit hole, trying to watch every throw from a quarterback that wasn’t really on your plan for the day.
“Coach [Reid] was walking down as he was here and he comes in the back room and he, at the time, said ‘what are you doing?’ I said ‘I’m watching our next quarterback.’”
Reid joined in watching film of Mahomes’ college reel, and was more and more impressed by what he saw of the quarterback.
“Brett Veach was one of my summer interns with the [Philadelphia] Eagles,” Reid told ESPN.
“I always have those guys that evaluate players for me and he was accurate with it.
“Then when I came to Kansas City, I ended up hiring him and he said to me, ‘You’ve got to watch this guy, this is the best guy I’ve ever seen.’
Mahomes was recruited by Kliff Kingsbury to join Texas Tech
The Chiefs stumbled across Mahomes while scouting Texa Tech’s left tackle
“This guy, he grew on you and he kept growing on you,” Reid added. “Backyard playing ball, the skill, the feel.”
Mahomes was very much under the radar, with most of the quarterback focus going on other 2017 prospects who played at more well-known football programmes including Mitchell Trubisky
of North Carolina and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson.
“People didn’t know how to scout Patrick Mahomes because he played this crazy, inventive, non-traditional style of football,” Peter King, formerly of Sports Illustrated said, with him being projected to be a first or second-round pick by the majority of analysts and scouts.
Spending just three seasons at Texas Tech after declaring for the draft early, Mahomes finished his college career having thrown for 11,252 yards and completing 63.5 percent of his passes for 93 touchdowns and 29 interceptions.
Despite this, some league front offices were not convinced that Mahomes – who was nicknamed the ‘energizer bunny’ by his mom due to him always wanting to play sports – and his unorthodox style of play would translate well into the NFL.
“A coach from an [unnamed] NFL team that came in said, ‘I wanna take a shot at greatness with this guy, but I can’t get my front office to see it because they’re scared,’” Mahomes’ agent, Chris Cabott told ESPN.
The Chiefs traded up 17 spots to draft Mahomes with the 10th overall pick
Draft Day movie came in clutch
But Veach wasn’t scared to put his reputation on the line and vouch for the player he had spent hours watching film of and analysing, and received a Hollywood-style gesture from his daughter on draft night.
“My daughter, who’s a teenager now – but she was younger at the time – she’s always asking me about my job and what I do,” Veach said. “I think her vision of the job was to write people’s names down and just pull them out of a hat.
“I wasn’t a super big football movie guy, but everybody watched Draft Day. We had watched that movie weeks prior to the draft, and so, she did see that one part in Draft Day where [Kevin] Costner’s character has the name written down.
“I was just getting ready to leave, and she hands me the card, and it said ‘Pat no matter what’. There’s nothing more special than your daughter writing that.”
Veach’s wife Alison went on to talk about the note that their daughter had written, stating that it was a reminder to go to draft night and to be “relentless” and stick to his “belief that Patrick was the future.”
Of course, we now know that the Chiefs – who were originally slated to have the 27th selection – traded up to the 10th overall pick to nab their future quarterback, parting ways with a future first and third-round pick.
Mahomes received some great advice from Brady following the Chiefs’ AFC Championship loss in 2018
Mahomes has since gone on to win three Super Bowls and three SB MVP awards
Veach now understands just how integral this moment was for the future of the franchise.
“Looking back on it, we had the smallest of windows to execute something that would completely change the landscape of, not just the NFL, but – more importantly – this city and the community.
It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” Veach said.
With this being the first time since the 1983 draft in which they selected a quarterback in the first round after drafting Todd Blackledge seventh overall, then-starting QB Alex Smith knew early on that “the writing was on the wall” and he would be at risk of losing his job to the rising star.
Although Smith played the 2017 season as the starter, after the Chiefs lost to the Tennessee Titans at the first hurdle of the postseason, the veteran quarterback knew his time had finally run out.
In Mahomes’ debut season under center as the starter, he threw for an impressive 50 touchdowns, and was named the league MVP, with his teammates singing his praises.
“Everyone was blown away [by Mahomes],” all-time great tight end Travis Kelce told ESPN. “That was the first time I had ever been on the field and felt magic happen.”
Although he would lead the Chiefs to the AFC Championship that season, they would fall to the NFL QB GOAT, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in overtime.
“One of the greatest things that Brady ever did was after the overtime win the Patriots had, he was with Patrick for 15 minutes just telling him ‘just keep doing what you’re doing, you’re the future,’” King revealed.
Since then, Mahomes has gone on to lead Kansas City to five Super Bowl appearances, winning three championships.
A two-time league MVP and three-time Super Bowl MVP, it’s difficult to comprehend that the four-time All-Pro is still just 29-years-old, and is in his prime.
With that being said, he’s nowhere near done yet, with Mahomes ranked the No. 1 quarterback in 2025, per ESPN’s annual poll, and has shown no signs of slowing down, even though some of the core around him, such as the aging Kelce, has.
When Mahomes is at the helm, nobody can write the Chiefs dynasty off from Super Bowl contention, it would simply be too foolish to.
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