[Quesadilla Joe]

From Albert Breer...

4. Patrick Mahomes landed in the perfect spot. How long will it be before Mahomes sees the field in Kansas City? Here’s how one Chiefs staffer explained it to me—they won’t think about it until he’s going to the line of scrimmage looking at what the defense is doing rather than thinking about what the offense is doing. In other words, he has to understand the playbook well enough to not just know but understand the ins and outs of all the plays, to point where he gets how to attack whatever defense is being thrown at him. And based on Mahomes’ background, it’ll probably be more than a year before he gets there.

Of course, there are reasons why they drafted him in the first place. Once the Chiefs flipped on the Mahomes tape, they had trouble turning it off. It was unconventional. It was mesmerizing. It didn’t translate that well to the NFL on surface. But what caught the eye of the Chiefs coaches was the way he improved on a week-to-week basis, slowly looking more and more natural, and less mechanical, running Kliff Kingsbury’s offense. Then they got him in the building, and love his unscripted, authentic way. And the truth is that Mahomes should be reciprocating that love to the Chiefs for drafting him. He gets to sit and learn this year—working on tying his footwork to the offense’s routes and learning the system—without the Chiefs having much pressure to play him. Then, they can come back and reassess next spring.

Will Kansas City stick to the plan to redshirt? History says most teams don’t. But Andy Reid’s job security added to Alex Smith’s presence says that, at least on the surface of it, this situation might be different.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/04/d...draft-notebook