Quote:
Originally Posted by BWillie
What is funny is that Mahomes is literally the anti-Alex Smith. Huge arm, throws down the field. Goes for the big play. Gunslinger mentality. Perhaps watching Alex Smith for a year will help him keep a level head and be more consistent.
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Excuse the length of my post, but here goes...
Speaking from a Texas Tech perspective, I believe Alex and Pat are going to be good for each other. Alex might loosen up his game a little bit and hopefully Pat will learn to play more controlled. He definitely will need a more cautious approach at the NFL level if he wants to succeed.
I also hope Andy and the other coaches can convince Pat to protect his body. He was an absolute warrior at Tech. He played through pretty serious injuries all three seasons at Tech: 2014 concussion, 2015 knee injury, 2016 throwing shoulder injury. Some of them were self-inflicted, such as trying to run over defenders instead of sliding. The knee injury happened on an attempt to dive for the end zone. He has the heart of a lion, but sometimes you just have to be smart. I believe Gruden emphasized this pretty heavily to him and Pat agreed 100%. Hopefully he will take it seriously.
I think Alex and Andy are a great situation for Pat. He got the best of both worlds: Top 10 money and hopefully a chance to learn from two good teachers with a lot of experience. Most of the time these Top 10 QB's get thrown to the wolves and it's a disaster for them. None of us want to see that for Mahomes and it would be bad for the Chiefs too of course.
You guys will love Pat's personality. He is a great kid with very high character and good sense of humor. He is the kind of guy that could easily be a good broadcaster at some point. There have been a lot of comparisons to Jay Cutler, but about the only thing they have in common is a huge arm and gunslinger approach on the field. Pat has zero character issues off the field, whereas Cutler has a ton of baggage.
If he is allowed to learn from Andy and Alex over a good amount of time (I feel he should get 2 years to learn without playing), he has superstar potential along the lines of Aaron Rodgers. His physical gifts are off the charts and his personality lights up a room. His ceiling is much higher than any of the other QB's in this draft and probably next year's draft. It's just a question of cleaning up mechanics and learning to play at the NFL level. Andy is a great QB coach, so let's hope they can refine this raw material into a sparkling diamond.
I encourage you guys to try to find the full video of Texas Tech's bowl game against LSU a couple years ago. Tech's offensive line was 110% overmatched and was getting destroyed on every play. You have to watch the full game to understand the context of some of the highlights you've probably already seen. Pat was running for his life as soon as the ball was snapped each and every down. With the help of our midget speedster Jakeem Grant, Mahomes somehow managed to keep that game competitive for about 2.5 quarters. He repeatedly converted 3rd and long, 4th and long, etc with amazing throws while scrambling his tail off.
That LSU bowl game should have been blowout status for LSU before the end of the first quarter based on how bad the mismatch was in the trenches. To me this was the game that made me think Pat might be able to succeed in the NFL. LSU is loaded with NFL talent and Tech's OL had zero ability to help Pat in that game. Arden Key in particular absolutely destroyed our OL guys on just about every down. At the NFL level, I cannot imagine the Chiefs OL getting their butts kicked like that on every single down. Pat was pretty much pulling a magic trick to even convert first downs, never mind actually putting a bunch of points on the board.