Kansas City Chiefs finally sign Patrick Mahomes
By John Buhler
No need to panic, Kansas City Chiefs fans. Your team has signed its first-round pick before the start of training camp.
With the Kansas City Chiefs set to break camp in a few days, it was crucially important that they got quarterback Patrick Mahomes to sign his rookie deal. Have no fear, Chiefs fans. Mahomes has put pen to paper and will report on time to fall camp.
The Chiefs official Twitter account tweeted out a picture of the star college quarterback out of Texas Tech signing his rookie contract. Kansas City traded up to No. 10 to get what it hopes will be its future franchise quarterback.
Let’s be clear: 2017 should be a redshirt year of sorts for the promising passer out of Texas Tech. Mahomes has all the arm talent in the world but is tremendously raw coming out of the Air Raid attack in Lubbock. No NFL offense resembles what he ran in the Big 12 for head coach Kliff Kingsbury.
https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/888146255808999424
For that reason, Mahomes will spend most, if not all, of 2017 backing up starting quarterback Alex Smith for the Chiefs. Smith has been a good soldier about it, but he knows that this will be almost certainly be his last year in a Chiefs uniform. He is playing in the last year of his Chiefs deal. When Mahomes is ready to start, Kansas City will move in another direction offensively.
The Chiefs rookies will report to camp on July 24 at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri. Because Mahomes has such a long way to go to fully grasp an NFL offense, he cannot miss a rep in practice during his rookie campaign.
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He’ll have to improve his footwork significantly, but the future is bright for this former Big 12 star. Not that Kansas City was going to drag these negotiations out, but it’s good to see Mahomes sign his rookie deal a few days before camp begins.