NFL 101 Awards: Patrick Mahomes, Clark Hunt headline Chiefs-centric evening in KC
Officially, the 101 Awards are national NFL honors, given annually to players and coaches from teams across the league.
In the 49th year of the awards, though, the banquet at which they were handed out felt more like a celebration of the Chiefs in the city that had a front-row seat to the nearly unprecedented success enjoyed by its franchise and quarterback last season.
At one table during the pre-ceremony news conference, NFC Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald was flanked by Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and NFC Coach of the Year — and former Chiefs offensive coordinator — Matt Nagy.
At the other table, Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt was surrounded by AFC Coach of the Year Frank Reich, hired by former Chiefs director of operations Chris Ballard, and former Chiefs linebacker Bobby Bell.
Yes, this was a celebration of the whole league, but the spotlight was undoubtedly on Kansas City and the Chiefs on Saturday night — something Hunt noticed as he took the podium to accept the Lamar Hunt Award for Professional Football on behalf of the Super Bowl III and IV teams.
“I haven’t gone back and researched it, but I would imagine that this is about as big a footprint as we’ve ever had on the NFL,” Hunt said. “Really most of the credit for that needs to go to Coach (Andy) Reid. This year, a full quarter of the head coaches in the NFL came from Andy Reid’s tree including himself. He has an amazing staff and not only did he have a lot of coaches who he worked with coaching teams, but they were also very successful. Coaches like Matt Nagy.
“The credit goes to Andy, but this is a very special time for the Chiefs on many levels.”
There was even a tie, Hunt found, between Rams’ defensive tackle Donald and the Chiefs.
“He spent a whole lot of time in our backfield chasing Patrick around,” said Hunt, drawing laughs from the full room at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown. “We feel like contributed to the success all four of them had.”
Mahomes, embraced as Kansas City’s own the minute he was taken with the 10th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, was the main attraction of the evening — a position to which he’s grown accustomed during the last year.
As Mahomes stood in a corner talking to local media after accepting the AFC Offensive Player of the Year Award, a long line of people formed in front of the quarterback. Only a few were able to snap photos before Mahomes had to return to his spot on the dais to give his second acceptance speech of the night, this one for the team MVP Award named in honor of Derrick Thomas.
It’s that community and support, Mahomes said in his acceptance speeches, that makes Kansas City so endearing.
“It is a tremendous honor, a tremendous honor to get this award, to be a part of this community,” Mahomes said. “That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned in my short amount of time here so far. It’s that this community is special and hopefully I’ll be a part of it for a long time and hopefully we have a lot of success on the football field as well.”
Just two seats down from Mahomes was Nagy, a man who learned under Reid and helped coach Mahomes during his first year as a professional quarterback.
“You come here as a coach being from Kansas City and sitting in that back room, and now, to be sitting up here, as the NFC Coach of the Year, it’s an honor,” Nagy said. “You’re around so many great people and as we all like to say, it’s not about one person, it’s about all of us. I was fortunate enough to learn from, in my opinion, the best coach in the NFL in coach Reid, who everybody here in Kansas City is lucky to have. He taught me a lot of great lessons, and I’ve been around a lot of great players.”
After the individual national honors, Hunt and Bell accepted the Lamar Hunt Award for Professional Football on behalf of the Super Bowl III and IV games for their contributions that helped merge the AFL and the NFL.
In those games, both AFL teams — including the Chiefs — emerged victorious and fueled the merger. The Chiefs’ Super Bowl IV victory also inspired Lamar Hunt to create the 101 Awards, yet another to the Chiefs.
Later, after the national awards were given, the team-focused awards were passed out. In addition to Mahomes’ MVP Award, offensive lineman Andrew Wylie accepted the Mack Lee Hill Rookie of the Year Award.
Like Mahomes, Wylie feels embraced by the Chiefs and the community around him.
“It’s nice to find a place where you belong,” said Wylie, who laughed and he said he couldn’t remember how many practice squads he’d been on. “The guys up there talked about it. Being on a few different practice squads, to be in one place for a whole year, it’s something I don’t take for granted.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2019 at 7:11 PM.