Sturm 60 Rewind:'17 - QB Patrick Mahomes

Looking back at how I felt about Mahomes before he conquered the football world.

This weekend, Patrick will try to win his 4th Super Bowl, which would tie him with Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw for the 2nd most Super Bowl wins in football history. At that point, at age 29, he might trail just Tom Brady in the pursuit for the most rings as a QB1.

There is absolutely no universe where anyone saw that as a remote possibility before he was drafted.

He won 13 games as a college starter in 29 starts. QB evaluations are hard enough, but when a player at the college level is not even winning half of his games in the Big 12 in any of his three seasons, it blinds us as to what he might really be.

I cannot explain how a guy like Patrick Mahomes lost six of his last eight college starts in his final season at Texas Tech, but he did. And when he did, the ability to look at his draft profile and project greatness seemed difficult.

Yes, there were epic performances lost – who will forget the amazing showdown with Baker Mayfield that was lost, 66-59, or the Oklahoma State loss, 45-44, but there were also some ugly days where West Virginia pounded Tech in Lubbock, 48-17, and a ridiculously bad 66-10 loss to Iowa State.

In real time, if your favorite college QB loses by 8 touchdowns to Iowa State, it is going to be difficult to offer a fully favorable review.

But, that is the fun of the draft process. The other thing that tripped me up is that he had 28 turnover-worthy plays in 2016 which led all of the NCAA amongst the draft eligibles. That number is crazy high and I got scared off that he doesn’t value the football.

I guess it really didn’t matter.

So, below, in full, is the profile I wrote for him on Friday, April 21, 2017. He was rated my 3rd highest QB in the 2017 draft behind Mitch Trubisky and DeShaun Watson and I saw him as a late first/early second round grade, which I obviously regret. But, that is the draft sometimes. I definitely could not get his circumstances separated from his potential at the next level.

Anyway, enough of my excuses. I was clearly wrong about Patrick.