Apr 21, 2019

  • Adam TeicherESPN Staff Writer

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    • Covered Chiefs for twenty seasons for Kansas City Star
    • Joined ESPN in 2013

KANSAS City, Mo. -- In the moments leading up to the start of the 2017 NFL typhoon, sports agent Leigh Steinberg sat with relative calm at a political party thrown by his client, Patrick Mahomes. The star quarterback from Texas Tech had opted to hire a state society in Tyler, Texas, to watch the proceedings with family unit and friends, rather than travel to the draft in Philadelphia.

Mahomes and many of his guests settled in for what it seemed could exist a long dark, with Mahomes thinking he might not be selected until the third round, which would take identify the next 24-hour interval.

Steinberg, a veteran agent who has represented Hall of Fame quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Immature, among others, sensed that the nighttime would continue a lot faster for his client than what was commonly believed.

"The draft is less mysterious when 1 is representing a role player than it is to the general public," Steinberg said. "The Chiefs expressed interest to usa early in the process, and nosotros knew they really liked Patrick. But they were going to have to move up several spots if they were going to arrive happen."

At Chiefs headquarters in Kansas City, team chairman Clark Hunt was far more nervous. The Chiefs had gone with journeymen quarterbacks and discarded players at the game's most of import position for almost all of their 57 seasons. Simply in Mahomes, the franchise had finally identified a young prospect information technology thought it had to have.

The Chiefs did not pick until No. 27, though, and similar Steinberg, they were aware that they wouldn't go Mahomes without making a large bound in the get-go round. They had discussed deals with five or six teams near the top of the draft -- with at to the lowest degree i merchandise locked in place.

Merely the variables were too many for the Chiefs to experience confident about getting Mahomes.

"We knew that nosotros were interested in Patrick, and if the opportunity came along for usa to trade up and get him, it was something that we wanted to do," Hunt said. "I would say that in a lot of ways, it made it more of a nervous first hour but watching the players come off the board."

With Mahomes still available as the draft reached the 10th option, the Chiefs took that merchandise they'd had in place. They sent the 27th pick, a third-round selection and their showtime-circular choice in 2018 to the Buffalo Bills for the right to draft Mahomes with the 10th pick.

The trade looks like one that volition alter the remainder of ability in the AFC for years to come up, something the Chiefs sensed when they fabricated information technology.

"It was pretty tense in [the draft room] for a little bit because we knew there were a couple other teams trying to get him," passenger vehicle Andy Reid said. "There was a flake of tension, merely everyone was excited when it happened. Information technology wasn't one of those deals where half the room was in on him and half wasn't. Everybody was in on this kid and liked him, so everyone was pretty fired up."

The timing was right in more ways than one for the Chiefs to draft a quarterback in the first round for the first fourth dimension in 34 years. They had a veteran quarterback in Alex Smith, but some in the organisation idea the Chiefs had gone every bit far every bit they could with him.

Smith led the Chiefs to the 2016 AFC W championship, their first in 6 years, only hadn't been able to get Kansas City past the bounded round of the playoffs in his four seasons every bit the starter. At the fourth dimension of the 2017 draft, Smith was a couple of weeks short of his 33rd birthday.

More chiefly, Mahomes was a quarterback prospect similar few others Reid had seen.

"Everybody liked this guy," Reid said. "We couldn't observe anybody that didn't similar him. I thought Willie [Davis] did a great task of scouting him. That's his surface area correct there -- that Texas expanse right in that location and Texas Tech in detail. I thought he did a good job of scouting him.

"We got to know the child earlier nosotros got to know the kid. Everybody kind of merely fell in love with the kid and what he was all about and how he went about his business and how he played. That doesn't happen every year. I'm proverb information technology like it'southward easy. That's not something that happens every year. When that happens, Ron Wolf told me this a long time agone: 'If yous have one of those guys that you like, yous go become them.'"

If the NFL were to do the 2017 draft over, Mahomes would be the No. ane overall pick. In his first flavor as a starter in 2018, Mahomes became the 2d quarterback in league history to throw for 50 touchdowns and more than five,000 yards. The Chiefs advanced to the AFC Championship Game for the first fourth dimension in 25 years, losing to the eventual Super Basin champion New England Patriots.

At the time of the draft in 2017, the Chiefs didn't need to movement up to the top selection to draft Mahomes, though. John Dorsey, the Chiefs' general manager at the time, read the draft perfectly past jumping to 10 but no higher.

"The draft prognosticators are projecting things, and if you lot think, they had anointed this trio of [Mitchell] Trubisky, [Deshaun] Watson and DeShone Kizer, and they were considered the elevation-round quarterbacks," Steinberg said. "At the beginning, they had Patrick at best a 2nd-rounder. Everybody publicly was saying he was years abroad from being set up to play, but teams were communicating with us, and we were enlightened Kansas City liked him very much. We were also aware there were a number of other teams that liked him, teams like the Arizona Cardinals, the New York Giants, the New Orleans Saints, the Pittsburgh Steelers. There were teams that would attempt to make the motion a year early to attempt to fix their next starting QB.

"We're sitting there on the night of the typhoon, and in that location's advice going back and forth between teams and agents. It'south not something you see, but we're on our phones talking with coaches and general managers. We were aware of sure teams that said they were trying to trade up. If Kansas City hadn't gone exactly where they went, he would take been gone. He would accept been gone on the very adjacent pick."

Dorsey had much the same sense. He identified the Cardinals, Giants and Saints as teams the Chiefs needed to maneuver in front of. The Saints picked 11th, the Cardinals 13th and the Giants 23rd.

"I tried to read as much as I could, in terms of reading the other 31 teams and seeing where they were positioning," Dorsey said shortly after Mahomes was drafted. "I felt to get this histrion, I had to exist at ten.

"I know there were iii teams that wanted this player very badly, and I got a text or two [afterwards] asking, 'How'd you practice that?' It worked. I've got to thank the Buffalo Bills. They were willing to larn some picks, and that would help them also, then it helped out both parties."

Dorsey and Doug Whaley, then the Bills' general manager, started discussing the trade at the NFL scouting combine in Feb. They got serious about merchandise terms in the days leading upwards to the draft.

Whaley said final week that he didn't know the role player the Chiefs were after and didn't suspect it was a quarterback, despite the steep move from 27 to x.

"Non at all," said Whaley, who was fired shortly after that draft for reasons not having to do with the Mahomes merchandise. "The Chiefs played information technology right. With Alex Smith on their roster, we didn't think they were coming up for a quarterback.

"From our standpoint, we had a new omnibus, and nosotros thought the trade gives us a chance to drop downward and yet get a really adept role player and nevertheless have 2 [first-rounders] the next year. At the time, it was something we thought was very benign for the Buffalo Bills. In our situation, we thought it was a win for us and a win for them. They got the guy they wanted. We got the guy we wanted and an extra first-round pick the next year."

The pertinent question now, of course, is what the Bills would have done with that 10th pick had they not sent it to the Chiefs. The Bills needed a quarterback at the time, and last twelvemonth they drafted Josh Allen in the first circular.

"That'due south hard to say," Whaley said. "Once nosotros got close, we knew we were going to accept the trade."

Would the Bills have taken Mahomes?

"There's always the possibility," he said.

If so, Mahomes and his fifty TD passes and 5,000 yards could be with the Bills. The Chiefs might still be quarterbacked by Smith, who was eventually traded to Washington.

That isn't a scenario the Chiefs want to contemplate. They have a long-continuing organizational policy that trading a future first-round pick requires blessing of ownership.

In this example, Hunt was eager to approve.

"It's non a decision that I took lightly," Hunt said. "But with all things considered, it was not a difficult decision. The chance to go a quarterback who can be a franchise quarterback for the Chiefs in the future fabricated it a pretty easy decision."