Tyreek Hill wasn’t impressed with Patrick Mahomes when the Chiefs first drafted the quarterback in 2017. In fact, the wide receiver thought the team had wasted the No. 10 pick on “trash,” Fansided.com reported.
NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Phil Simms asked Hill on Inside the NFL what he thought of Mahomes when he first saw him at practice.
“I thought he was trash, I ain’t gonna cap,” Hill said. “I was like, ‘this is who y’all drafted right here?”
Though that quickly changed, Hill admitted.
“That second year his quarterback mechanics was different. He was spending more time with his quarterback coach. He was spending more time with coach (Andy) Reid learning the offense. Dude was like different.”
Mahomes seemed to take the comment in stride. He tweeted a confused-looking gif, along with the story Sunday night. This comes after helping Hill rake in 13 catches for 269 yards and three touchdowns in the 10-1 Chiefs win over the Buccaneers. The speedster sent Mahomes some love on Twitter after the game.
Of course, Hill now calls Mahomes one of the greatest ever, adding the acronym “goat” for Greatest of All Time.
Tyreek Hill Not the Only Person to Doubt Mahomes at First
While it’s funny to joke about Hill’s bad hot take, it wasn’t that far off from a lot of people’s first impressions of Mahomes. He may now be a Super Bowl MVP, a perennial all-star, and the highest-paid NFL player ever, but his start was much more inauspicious.
Several teams passed on Mahomes in the 2017 draft. In fact, he wasn’t the first quarterback taken. Chicago took Mitch Trubisky out of the University of North Carolina with the second pick that year to poor results. So why didn’t Mahomes go higher?
It largely had to do with where he came from, experts said.
“The question seemed to be: Who had come out of that [Air Raid] offense and been successful?” said former NFL general manager Charley Casserly, an analyst for NFL Network, according to the NY Post. “He was certainly a gunslinger who left the pocket too soon and threw the ball all over the place. You saw raw talent, you didn’t see discipline. And he hadn’t won.”
The Raiders were famous for their wide-open, pass-heavy offense. The team has produced some of the most prolific passers in college football history, but not many NFL quarterbacks and no superstars at the time. But despite that, the Chiefs saw massive potential in him. Even if others didn’t.
“Give Kansas City credit for pulling the trigger, developing him, and building a system for him,” Casserly said, according to NY Post. “Just watching tape can’t tell you whether the guy can play. You have to get your hands on him and see how he reacts to things. There is a skill involved in that, and [coach] Andy Reid and his staff are pretty good at it.”
