Patrick Mahomes was almost a member of the New Orleans Saints

Patrick Mahomes is facing the New Orleans Saints for the first time this weekend, but he was almost a member of the organization.

Every Kansas City Chiefs fan remembers the night the franchise traded up from pick No. 27 to No. 10 to draft Patrick Mahomes. The kid lit up the stat sheets at Texas Tech and was an intriguing prospect in that year’s draft. He was the second quarterback off the board and the Chiefs gave up a lot in order to draft him.

Had the Chiefs not traded up, however, the New Orleans Saints were waiting to pounce on Mahomes with the No. 11 overall pick. Sam McDowell of The Kansas City Star wrote an article about how Mahomes nearly landed with the Saints in the 2017 NFL Draft.

"The Saints had the 11th overall pick, and they graded Mahomes and Lattimore among the top players in the draft class. As the opening round of the 2017 NFL Draft progressed, they removed names of selected players from their board.Nine players gone.Only two remained in the Saints’ top bubble: Lattimore and Mahomes.“Then that discussion takes place,” Payton said. “There’s two parts to it. When you have a quarterback, there’s the part of (who) you will help the team right now, which is Lattimore. Or there’s the future. And back and forth. And when it got to (number) nine, and nine was selected, we knew we were getting one of the two.“And then Andy decided for us.”"

Some Chiefs fans might have already heard these rumors and rumblings. It’s not surprising when you think about it, as Sean Payton is one of the best coaches in the league and almost always has a prolific offense on the field. Mahomes would have made a lot of sense in New Orleans.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened with Drew Brees though. He’s still with the Saints to this day and has played well. In fact, in Mahomes’ first full year as a starter, Brees was right there with him in the running for league MVP, which ultimately went to Mahomes after Brees struggled in the final few games that year.

Brees was injured for five games last year and Teddy Bridgewater stepped in and went 5-0 in his place. It’s very possible that had Mahomes been the backup there, maybe that’s when the Saints were faced with a difficult decision. That has an Alex Smith/Colin Kaepernick feel to it, where despite being their starter for so long, Mahomes would have come in, probably lit it up, and won the job for the rest of the season.

Maybe then the Saints are faced with a difficult decision. Maybe then they make the decision to move on from Brees, or maybe Brees retires instead. At that point, however, it would feel unlikely as he still clearly had good football left in him.

It really is crazy to think about how close this was to happening. I’ve always said that Mahomes probably isn’t as good as he is if another team had drafted him (looking at you, Chicago), but that doesn’t apply to the Saints. If Mahomes goes to New Orleans, he’s not only learning from Payton and Brees, but he has weapons surrounding him (Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas to name a few), a stellar defense (though Marshon Lattimore isn’t there, as he’s who they took at No. 11 instead), and an electric fanbase.

Mahomes would have been set up to succeed in the Big Easy and he’d have done well for himself there. Would he have done as well as he has in Kansas City? I guess we’ll never know.