By Kyle Silagyi / Billswire.usatoday.com
Nine players were selected before quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Nine players were selected before a future NFL MVP.
Nine teams passed on the intriguing prospect out of Texas Tech, talking themselves out of the 6-foot-3 quarterback with solid athleticism and a cannon for an arm.
But only one team traded the pick that he was ultimately selected with.
The Buffalo Bills traded the 10th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft to the Kansas City Chiefs, moving down 17 spots and receiving Kansas City’s first-round pick in the 2018 draft in the process.
The Chiefs selected Mahomes with the pick. After a year of seasoning, Mahomes took the reins in Kansas City, passing for 50 touchdowns and winning the NFL’s MVP award in the 2018 season.
A moderate-sized “oof” for the Bills, certainly.
In a recent interview with The Athletic’s Matthew Fairburn, Sean McDermott explained why he passed on Mahomes and other top-tier quarterbacks in his first draft as Buffalo’s head coach.
He had been hired just three months prior to the draft, leaving his newly constructed staff with little time to potentially identify a signal-caller as the new face of the franchise.
“The first year, [the evaluation] was shorter because of all the other stuff,” McDermott said, per Fairburn. “Putting the staff together. And I think I carried over the lessons I learned going through it the first time.”
Though it’s easy to laugh at the Bills’ decision to pass on Mahomes in hindsight, the move made sense at the time.
Buffalo already had a serviceable quarterback on its roster in Tyrod Taylor. Though it was clear that Taylor was not the signal-caller of the future in Western New York, he was set to start for at least another season.
Quarterback was not a glaring need for the Bills.
Buffalo also entered the 2017 draft with a general manager who had one foot out the door. It was common knowledge that Doug Whaley and the majority of the team’s scouting staff were to be let go at the conclusion of the draft.
Allowing a departing general manager to select the quarterback of your franchise’s future just days before you fire him? That just doesn’t seem smart.
Even if the Bills were interested in selecting a passer in the first round of the 2017 draft, Mahomes may not have been their target, as a large portion of the league was wrong in their evaluation of the signal-caller.
Nobody knew Mahomes was going to develop into the player he is today. Few people watched his college tape and saw a future NFL MVP.
Nearly a third of the league passed on the opportunity to select him. The Chicago Bears even selected North Carolina passer Mitchell Trubisky ahead of him.
While Buffalo did trade out of the opportunity to select a franchise-altering quarterback, the situation could have ended worse for the team. After trading down with Kansas City, the Bills selected LSU cornerback Tre’Davious White, a reliable defender who has developed into one of the brightest young defensive backs in the NFL.
Ramifications of the trade were felt again one year later, as Buffalo used the future-first round pick it acquired from the Chiefs to orchestrate a trade up in the 2018 NFL Draft. The Bills jumped from pick No. 22 to pick No. 16 to select Virginia Tech linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, who now serves as the quarterback of Buffalo’s stout defense.
In that same draft, the Bills finally secured their prospective franchise quarterback, selecting Josh Allen with the seventh overall pick.
There certainly could’ve been worse outcomes for Buffalo.