ESPN analyst chastises teams for thinking they can develop their own Patrick Mahomes
Chances are you’ve heard the NFL is a copycat league. What that means is when a team finds success, others soon attempt to emulate that franchise.
That’s why you might hear a lot about teams wanting to draft a young quarterback and have them sit for a year behind a veteran quarterback. You know, because that’s what the Chiefs did.
The Chiefs selected Patrick Mahomes with the 10th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft and he sat out nearly his entire rookie season, learning the ropes from coach Andy Reid and starting quarterback Alex Smith.
Is that a blueprint for others to develop their own Mahomes at quarterback with someone from this year’s draft class?
Former Broncos/Ravens/Falcons cornerback Domonique Foxworth emphatically said no on ESPN’s “Get Up,” and he chastised teams for thinking they might follow what the Chiefs did.
“I don’t care what you think, those guys that you’re looking at are not going to be Patrick Mahomes,” he said. “And the other thing that I hear happening a lot is teams talking about maybe redshirting their quarterback when they come in. Having a guy like Jimmy Garoppolo hang around and maybe play a little bit or having Sam Donald hang around and maybe play a little bit before you go on to your next guy. And you think that somehow that’s gonna create something similar to Patrick Mahomes. No, it’s not.
“Patrick Mahomes would have been nasty as a rookie. He did not need a whole season to learn how to identify the ‘Mike’ (linebacker), contrary to what you may believe. If Patrick Mahomes can count the three, he can ID the ‘Mike.’ So don’t believe that you’re going to do something special and create this new Patrick Mahomes because some guy can throw off the wrong foot across his body or because you allow him to sit on a bench for a season.“
Here is the clip from Twitter user Chiefs Highlights:
This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
