Kansas City Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes silencing doubters with play

With two touchdown passes in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 26-14 victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, quarterback Patrick Mahomes II became the franchise’s record holder in single-season touchdown passes with 31.

Believe it or not, the second-year stud for the Kansas City Chiefs had his doubters as far back as the 2017 NFL Draft.

Mitchell Trubisky is a solid quarterback. He has Chicago Bears fans excited for the future, but the number two overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft is no Patrick Mahomes II. Whether Trubisky is as good as the possible 2018 NFL MVP remains to be seen, but for now Mahomes is the class of that draft — and maybe this year’s NFL.

The former Texas Tech gunslinger now leads the NFL with 31 touchdown tosses and 3,150 passing yards. In what is essentially his rookie season, Mahomes is completing two-thirds of his pass attempts and averaging around 8.5 yards per throw.

In other words, he is exceeding even the greatest expectations anyone had for him, and is head and shoulders above Trubisky — who in his own right is having a nice season with 19 touchdowns and more than 2,000 yards.

The former North Carolina star’s play has taken some of the sting off the Bears’ passing on Mahomes, but the Buffalo Bills fan base has not been so lucky. The Bills, who selected Wyoming’s Josh Allen in the first round of this year’s draft, actually traded the tenth spot to the Chiefs in 2017 so Kansas City could take Mahomes, all the while desperately needing a competent signal caller themselves.

Here is some perspective on how that deal has gone for the Bills:

The Chiefs were obviously high on Mahomes coming out of college, but so were most of the “experts.” The general consensuses seemed to be that Mahomes, the son of a former MLB pitcher, was going to be a good NFL player. However, there were plenty of doubters. Here is Jason Boatright, a video producer for the Kansas City Star, with a hot take right out of the gate:

Mahomes has a lot of regressing to do before we can give Boatright props for this prediction, but he wasn’t the only one wrong on Mahomes. Matthew Hatfield of VirginiaPreps.com used his nose to tell us Mahomes may not have a successful NFL career:

The amazing Twitter account, Freezing Cold Takes, did some great work last month in exposing multiple verified accounts, including ESPN’s own Stephen A. Smith, that came out swinging with some less-than-stellar opinions on Mahomes right after the draft:

TJ Carpenter, a former Kansas City radio host who spews his hot takes on Denver air waves these days, has had plenty to say about Mahomes — and he’s usually wrong , like this time:

That was part of a conversation with a follower that was spurned from this amazingly bad prediction by Carpenter:

He may be right on the over/under of interceptions from Mahomes at ten, considering he has seven so far. However, Future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning led the NFL in picks with 28 his rookie season. That’s meaningless. As for the touchdowns, Carpenter lost his “guaranteed” bet after week eight.

More from Patrick Mahomes

• The Chiefs Divisional Parlay Bet to Lock in Right Now
• WATCH: Patrick Mahomes Throws Absurdly Accurate Behind-The-Back Pass
• What Chiefs Players Will Be on Next Year’s NFL Top 100?
• It’s Time to Bet Patrick Mahomes to Win MVP
• Patrick Mahomes is Officially the Most Underpaid Athlete in the World

The most telling part of rehashing old takes regarding players isn’t that certain people were wrong. It happens. I once thought Ryan Leaf would be better than Manning. To say that was wrong would be like saying Bradley Cooper is kind of handsome.

Today’s constant barrage of hot takes from ESPN experts to Joe Blow on twitter is beyond tired. The fact that many get angry or begin backtracking if they are called out, makes it worse.

The greatest thing about sports is that you truly don’t know what is going to happen until the teams take the field. As ESPN anchor Chris Berman likes to say, “That’s why. They play. The game.” Mahomes plays the game better than most these days. More important than his stats is the fact the Chiefs are 9-1 and the favorite to claim the top seed in the AFC.

Trubisky may turn out to be a Pro Bowl quarterback, and Allen may be the answer the Bills were looking for, but Mahomes is playing better than anyone under center right now — including Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady.

Whether you predicted that or not doesn’t matter. Mahomes actually is running a well-oiled machine, and in Kansas City that smells a lot more like barbecue than bust.