Kansas City Chiefs general manager Brett Veach still remembers the first time he laid eyes on Patrick Mahomes; although he wasn\u2019t supposed to be watching the Texas Tech quarterback.<\/p>\n
Watch the 6-part Kansas City Chiefs docuseries \u2018The Kingdom\u2019 with ESPN on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n Heck, Veach \u2014 then co-director of player personnel at the Chiefs \u2014 didn\u2019t even know Mahomes was a prospect. <\/p>\n He was supposed to be watching tape of a Texas Tech left tackle ahead of the 2017 draft. But he couldn\u2019t stop his eyes from following No.5 instead. <\/p>\n The way Mahomes, a former shortstop and son of a major league baseball player, threw with the velocity and accuracy of an infielder.<\/p>\n The way Mahomes could access throws from all kinds of angles and to all kinds of windows, even when playing off-script as the pocket collapsed around him. <\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden you\u2019re down this rabbit hole trying to watch every throw from a quarterback that really wasn\u2019t on your plan for the day,\u201d Veach said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you\u2019re watching the tackle you\u2019re saying, \u2018Oh, that was a pretty cool throw\u2019. Like, \u2018Who is this guy?\u2019. You\u2019re googling the Texas Tech roster and then you\u2019re looking for number five. Who is number five? Patrick Mahomes. Wow.\u201d<\/p>\n Veach’s attention quickly turned to Mahomes (far right).Source: Supplied<\/p>\n Veach was saying all of this on ESPN Originals\u2019 \u2018The Kingdom\u2019 documentary \u2014 a six-part series following Kansas City\u2019s pursuit of a three-peat, all the way from the very start when the Chief stumbled across their franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n Although not everyone saw the vision. <\/p>\n Others didn\u2019t see the beauty in Mahomes\u2019 improvisation. They saw recklessness. They saw a quarterback with poor mechanics who may struggle to replicate his success from Texas Tech\u2019s system to the NFL. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople didn\u2019t know how to scout Patrick Mahomes because he played this crazy, inventive, non-traditional style of football,\u201d Peter King, formerly of Sports Illustrated, said on Episode 1 of the docuseries.<\/p>\n In fact, Mahomes\u2019 agent Chris Cabott later said that one coach from a rival NFL team told him he wanted to \u201ctake a shot at greatness\u201d but that he couldn\u2019t get his front office on board.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause they were scared,\u201d Cabott said.<\/p>\n But Veach? He wasn\u2019t afraid to take the highest upside swing of the draft, with the Chiefs going on to trade up to take Mahomes 10th overall.<\/p>\n When Chiefs coach Andy Reid walked over and asked Veach what he was doing that first time he watched Mahomes\u2019 tape, the now Kansas City GM was emphatic from the very start. <\/p>\n NFL game suspended after scary injury | 00:38<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m watching our next quarterback,\u201d Veach said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to watch this guy. He\u2019s the best guy I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n By draft night Veach had Reid and the Chiefs front office on board. This was his guy. But as if he needed anymore convincing, his daughter gave him one final reason to not falter from his belief in No.5.<\/p>\n \u201cMy daughter, who\u2019s a teenager now but was younger at the time, she\u2019s always asking me at a younger age about my job and what I do,\u201d Veach said. <\/p>\n \u201cI think her vision of the job was to write people\u2019s names down and just pull them out of a hat. <\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t a super big football movie guy, but I think everybody watched Draft Day. We had watched that movie weeks prior to the Draft, and so she did see that one part where Costner\u2019s character had the name written down.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just getting ready to leave, and she hands me the card. It said, \u2018Pat no matter what.\u2019 There\u2019s nothing more special than your daughter writing that.\u201d<\/p>\n Veach’s daughter wrote her father a message.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n So, it was Pat no matter what and after trading up 17 spots to get him despite having veteran Alex Smith still on the roster, the Chiefs got their quarterback. <\/p>\n Three Super Bowls and two MVP awards followed, while in 2020 Mahomes signed a 10-year contract extension worth over $450 million ($A691m) that was one of the largest in sports history. <\/p>\n \u201cLooking back on it, we had the smallest of windows to execute something that would completely change the landscape of, not just the NFL, but \u2014 more importantly \u2014 this city and the community,\u201d Veach said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe that it wasn\u2019t supposed to happen this way.\u201d<\/p>\n The first two episodes of \u2018The Kingdom\u2019 aired with ESPN on Kayo Sports on Saturday the 16th of August, with episodes three and fourth available to stream on the 21st and the final two episodes released the following day on the 22nd. <\/p>\n You can follow Kansas City\u2019s journey towards a three-peat and go behind the scenes of the heartbreak after the Super Bowl LIX loss with ESPN on Kayo Sports. If you are new to Kayo, you can join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kansas City Chiefs general manager Brett Veach still remembers the first time he laid eyes on Patrick Mahomes;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-78951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}