KC Chiefs: Pro Football Focus appears very high on Patrick Mahomes

The KC Chiefs traded up to draft quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft. While some criticized the move, other outlets, like Pro Football Focus, are very optimistic about how Mahomes’ career will play out.

For the most part, Kansas City Chiefs fans were excited about drafting Patrick Mahomes tenth overall this year. For the doubters, however, it’s understandable. He likely won’t play until 2018 so the pick could be looked at as a wasted effort for the upcoming season.

Pro Football Focus recently conducted a draft as to who they’d want to start their NFL franchise with. As you can all imagine, quarterbacks were aplenty in this particular draft because… Well, let’s face it. Without a decent quarterback, your team probably won’t be very good.

In this draft, you saw the expected quarterbacks taken off the board early. Age matters, but the contracts don’t, which is an interesting tidbit. The age part is especially important because it is why Tom Brady was taken 11th rather than first overall.

The first five off the board were Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, Derek Carr, and Dak Prescott. All of these are solid choices to start an NFL team with. Rodgers is still incredible, but he is likely about to hit the down part of his career. Luck, Wilson, Carr, and Prescott are all young and have taken their teams to the playoffs at least once.

The most shocking part about this draft was that Pro Football Focus drafted Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes with the 13th pick in who they’d want to start a franchise with. The reasoning? Read for yourself.

"Coming on the heels of consecutive quarterbacks who are a combined 77 years old and have a combined 33 years in the league, this is a hard left turn, to a 21-year-old who was only drafted a couple of months ago and is unlikely to see the field in more than a handful of garbage-time situations in 2017. Considering this is starting a whole new league, odds are Mahomes, taken here, would start in this league, but even with that, this is a pick made by a team building for the future, not necessarily right now."

As an avid KC Chiefs fan, reading this pumps me up for the Mahomes era to start! I know that the kid isn’t going to be thrown to the wolves any time soon (and trust me, I’m more than okay with that), but the fact that a well-thought of football analysis site picked Mahomes as one of the best players to start a franchise with has to make Chiefs fans feel good about his future and what he can do for this team moving forward.

More from Kansas City Chiefs

In between Prescott at number five and Mahomes at number 13 were Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota, Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Kirk Cousins, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees. Brees and Brady were both “slighted” on this list due to their age, which no one can argue against.

Mahomes was ranked directly ahead of Matthew Stafford and USC quarterback Sam Darnold. Darnold might not even be playing in the NFL until 2019 yet was picked 15th for who teams would want to start a franchise with.

The highest non-quarterback taken was actually at pick 16 with Joey Bosa of the Los Angeles Chargers. Aaron Donald was picked next at 17 followed by Khalil Mack, J.J. Watt, and Von Miller to round out the top 20. No other Chiefs made an appearance on the draft board.

It’s worth noting that 2017 first round picks Mitchell Trubisky and Deshaun Watson were not drafted. Trubisky was the second overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft and Watson was taken just after Mahomes by the Texans.

Obviously this is just one of those “to kill time” posts, but it’s pretty cool that the hard workers over at Pro Football Focus think highly enough of Mahomes to say he’s worth taking 13th overall to start a franchise with. That, my friends, is a good sign for the future of the KC Chiefs.

Home/Kansas City Chiefs