Kansas City Chiefs: What if Patrick Mahomes isn’t as good as advertised?

By Leigh Oleszczak | Jun 10, 2018

(Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images) /

For the first time since 2013, the Kansas City Chiefs have a new starting quarterback. That man is Patrick Mahomes and the hype is through the roof. What if he doesn’t deliver that hype though?

Kansas City Chiefs fans believe that former Texas Tech star Patrick Mahomes is the answer at quarterback for the franchise. The organization obviously had faith in the Red Raider signal caller, as they jumped up 18 spots to draft him in 2017.

Mahomes saw action in one game last year and while he looked pretty good, it was one game. By the way Chiefs fans are talking Mahomes up this offseason, it sounds like the team has the next Dan Marino on their hands. While that’d be great, Chiefs fans really need to taper their expectations.

Yes, Mahomes looked solid in his career debut in week 17 against the Broncos, but again, it was one game. He didn’t throw a touchdown and the pick he threw was a pretty bad throw that didn’t need to happen. That will be the story for Mahomes, as he’s definitely more of a risk taker than Alex Smith was (at least in the first four seasons of his Chiefs tenure).

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Mahomes is going to live and breathe by throwing the ball deep and that’s going to result in interceptions from time to time. With 2018 basically being Mahomes’ rookie year, we should expect that to happen a lot.

People are going to read this article and think that I’m being a hater, but I call it being realistic. Chiefs fans have every right to be excited about their new quarterback, but the way people describe him makes it sound like he’s going to be the best quarterback of all-time. That’d be great if that were the case, but he’s 22 years old (turning 23 in September) and has a lot of time to write his story, so let’s not jump the gun here.

The point I’m trying to make here is that it’s okay to be excited about Patrick Mahomes, but there is still a chance that the kid fails. What if that happens? Well, it’s simple. Hopefully the Chiefs aren’t scarred for life like they were after the failures of Todd Blackledge and draft another first round quarterback whenever they decide Mahomes isn’t the answer, if that should be the case years down the road.

From there, the process repeats itself and we sit here wondering if that guy is the savior of the Kansas City Chiefs franchise. This is what the Cleveland Browns experience every two to three years.

For the record, I think Patrick Mahomes will be good and am stoked to see what he can do on a week-to-week basis. I do chuckle whenever I see Chiefs fans think he’ll throw for 30 touchdowns and just five interceptions this upcoming season.

He’s basically a rookie and has a knack for throwing the pigskin deep. He’ll get picked off more than we care for and it’ll be interesting to see how fans respond when those interceptions do occur.

The good news is this will be year one of the Patrick Mahomes era and if he struggles, there’s still at least two years left on his rookie deal to try and figure out if he’s the answer before signing him to a long-term deal. Hopefully he is as good as advertised and the long-term deal is an obvious must for the franchise.

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