(Audacy) Of all the teams he could've gone to, how did star quarterback Patrick Mahomes land with Kansas City? Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce sought to answer that question during a recent episode of New Heights, a weekly podcast he co-hosts with his brother Jason, a center for the Philadelphia Eagles. Appearing as a guest, Mahomes admitted he got plenty of help along the way from then-Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, who told him ahead of time what plays would be reviewed at his pre-draft workout the following day.
“I’m going to give you all the inside scoop,” said Mahomes, whom the Chiefs traded up to select at No. 10 overall in the 2017 NFL Draft. “Matt Nagy, who was the offensive coordinator then, he really liked me, so he gave me the plays they were going to go over the night before.”
Mahomes, who led all of FBS with 5,052 passing yards in his junior season at Texas Tech, predictably aced his workout, making a believer out of coach Andy Reid.
“Of course, I crushed the meeting,” Mahomes said in wry amusement at the gambit he was running with Nagy behind the scenes, all without Reid’s knowledge. “I stayed up all night studying those plays.”
It was at that moment the Chiefs knew they had their franchise quarterback. Sensing his stock rising, Mahomes encouraged the Chiefs to trade up for him, warning that, based on conversations he’d had with other interested teams, he certainly wouldn’t make it to them at No. 27, the original pick they held, and probably not that long past No. 10.
“As the process went on, I got a feeling that I was kind of going up in the draft," Mahomes said. "I had a couple teams that said they were going to draft me. I kind of gave a little inside info to the Chiefs. I was like, ‘Hey if y’all let me go 12 or below, I’m going to get drafted by someone else.’”
The Chiefs would ultimately trade up to No. 10 in order to make Mahomes the second quarterback drafted that year behind North Carolina's Mitchell Trubisky, whom the Bears selected at No. 2 overall. The rest is history with Mahomes, who has become arguably the NFL's best player and won a Super Bowl after successfully conspiring with Nagy to game the system to land his dream job.
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