Patrick Mahomes says Kansas City fans can thank Matt Nagy for getting the Chiefs to draft him in 2017.
Mahomes revealed on the New Heights Podcast (hosted by Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce) that when Mahomes was preparing for a pre-draft interview with Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, Nagy set him up to succeed.
Nagy was then the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator and is now the Chiefs’ senior assistant and quarterbacks coach, and Mahomes said that Nagy talked to Mahomes the night before his pre-draft visit to tell him exactly what he needed to know to impress Reid.
“The first day that I met Coach Reid was at the facility,” Mahomes said. “He’s just going through plays, going through plays. And I’m going to give you the inside scoop: Matt Nagy, who was the offensive coordinator then, he really liked me so he gave me the plays they were going to go over the night before. So Coach Reid is finding out here on the New Heights Podcast.”
Mahomes said that after Nagy told him which plays Reid would want to review with him the next day, Mahomes spent the whole night studying the plays and that Reid was blown away by how thoroughly Mahomes seemed to understand the Chiefs’ offense.
“I crushed the meeting. I stayed up all night studying those plays,” Mahomes said.
Mahomes said he got along well with Reid and Nagy and wanted to play for them, so he informed them that they were going to need to trade up to get him after other teams told him they were planning to draft him if he was available.
“I had a couple teams who said they were going to draft me,” Mahomes said. “I kind of gave a little inside info to the Chiefs . . . ‘If you let me go 12 or below I’m going to get drafted by someone else.’”
As it turned out, the Chiefs traded up to the 10th overall pick to select Mahomes. The Saints had the 11th pick, and then-Saints head coach Sean Payton has said that he was very high on Mahomes, although Mahomes said in the interview that he didn’t realize the Saints liked him. The Browns owned the 12th overall pick and traded down with the Texans, who used that pick on Deshaun Watson.
It’s unclear which team would have ended up with Mahomes if the Chiefs hadn’t made that trade up, but he likely wouldn’t have stayed available much longer. The Chiefs made a great move by trading up for Mahomes, and it all started with Nagy.
