Patrick Mahomes can throw a football at least 80 yards, but Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury’s favorite memories of the quarterback don’t stem from his superhuman arm strength.
Instead, they’re about his fortitude.
Mahomes suffered a second-degree sprain of the AC joint in his throwing shoulder Sept. 29 during a 55-19 win over Kansas. Tech’s medical staff told Kingsbury that Mahomes wouldn’t play for two or three weeks. However, Mahomes didn’t miss a game.
“There were four or five weeks that he didn’t practice much, and he’d get it shot up before the game, he’d get it shot up at halftime and go out there and tough it out,” Kingsbury said in a recent phone interview with the Beacon Journal. “As you know in our offense, we’re throwing the heck out of it, and he kept slinging it.”
Mahomes suffered a broken left wrist Oct. 22 against Oklahoma. But Kingsbury said Mahomes didn’t tell anyone about the injury on his way to finishing 52-of-88 passing (59.1 percent) for 734 yards and five touchdowns with an interception and rushing 12 times for 85 yards and two touchdowns in a 66-59 loss. He had surgery on his non-throwing wrist in December.
“His toughness and the way he plays the game, the way he continues to compete, those are traits that you want at that next level,” Kingsbury said.
You also want your quarterback to possess his arm talent.
“He’s got an absolute freakish arm, and I’ve been around a bunch, obviously was on a bunch of teams as a player and coached a bunch,” said Kingsbury, a former Tech quarterback and sixth-round draft pick of the New England Patriots in 2003 who played for five NFL teams. “He can do things that very few people on the planet can do with his arm talent.”
If the Browns can’t swing a trade for Patriots backup Jimmy Garoppolo or Cincinnati Bengals backup AJ McCarron, they’ll almost certainly target a quarterback early in the draft. The picture could become clear soon. The NFL owners meetings run Sunday through Wednesday in Phoenix and provide a perfect setting for teams to discuss deals.
Browns coach Hue Jackson has listed arm talent, processing speed and an ability to become the face of a franchise as the qualities he’s seeking in a quarterback.
Mahomes is the poster boy for arm talent in this year’s class. The Browns have reportedly conducted a private workout with him, meaning Jackson and head of football operations Sashi Brown are unlikely to attend his pro day on Friday.
The Browns are expected to draft Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett first overall on April 27, but they could use their second first-round pick, No. 12, on a quarterback. Many draft analysts believe No. 12 would be too early to take Mahomes because he’s raw, but there are always surprises.
The Browns also have the first selection of the second round (No. 33 overall). They could consider Mahomes there if he were still available and they hadn’t addressed their pressing need for a quarterback in the first round, when most analysts project North Carolina’s Mitchell Trubisky, Clemson’s Deshaun Watson and Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer will be picked.
ESPN analyst Todd McShay said during a recent conference call that Mahomes needs at least a year to develop before starting in the NFL. McShay projects Mahomes to become a late first-round pick or a second-round selection.
He became Texas Tech’s starter as a freshman when Davis Webb suffered a shoulder injury. Mahomes managed to keep the job, and Webb eventually transferred to California. NFLDraftScout.com projects Webb as a second- or third-round pick.
Mahomes finished his career at Tech with a record of 13-16 as a starter and completed 63.5 percent of his passes for 11,252 yards and 93 touchdowns with 29 interceptions. He also ran for 845 yards and 22 touchdowns on 308 carries.
As a junior last season, Mahomes went 388-of-591 passing (65.7 percent) for 5,052 yards and 41 touchdowns with 10 interceptions. He rushed 131 times for 285 yards and 12 touchdowns.
“He is a big-time developmental prospect, and I mean big time in both the positive and negative,” McShay said. “I think his upside may be as great as any quarterback in this class, but his learning curve could be as great as any quarterback in this class because he comes from a system that has not translated well to the NFL. No quarterback from that Air Raid-style offense has ever sustained success in the league.
“Mahomes throws the best deep ball, is the most accurate deep passer in this class and made some throws from launch points that I honestly can never remember seeing, like almost submarine throws and sidearms and body 100 mph falling off balance to the right throwing back to the left. Bad decisions, but great throws. So his tape was a roller-coaster ride.”
The highs were results of a phenomenal arm. The lows were byproducts of sloppy footwork and mechanics. The lack of fundamentals can be explained by inexperience.
Mahomes, 21, is the son of the former MLB pitcher with the same name. His godfather is LaTroy Hawkins, another retired big-time pitcher.
So the younger Mahomes, 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds, was a pitcher and a basketball player growing up. He started playing football in seventh grade and didn’t become a starting quarterback until his junior season at Whitehouse High School in Texas. He was a member of the baseball and football teams at Texas Tech until last year, when he gave up baseball and focused solely on football for the first time.
“I didn’t work a lot of quarterback stuff when I was young,” Mahomes said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “So I kind of just got out there and started just playing, and in high school, I ran a spread offense, but I kind of sat back there and made plays. Going to college, you see every year I get better and better.
“[NFL teams want to know] how hard I want to work. They know I have the talent, and it’s going to be all about if I can get my base right, if I can be consistent with my mechanics every time. If I do that, I feel like I can excel at the next level.”
It will likely take time. Mahomes has been working with private quarterbacks coach Mike Sheppard as he prepares to transition from Tech’s pass-happy, spread offense, which functioned out of the shotgun and without a huddle.
Kingsbury argues Mahomes won’t be as big a project in the NFL as some believe because Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions have done pretty well despite unconventional footwork and mechanics.
“Pat’s a dynamic athlete,” Kingsbury said. “Anything they ask him to do, whether it be under center or five-step drops or seven-step drops, he’ll pick up quickly and be able to do it and do it at a high level. I’ve heard a bunch about his mechanics and his footwork and blah, blah, blah, but you watch those guys play who are at the top of their game, and they’re playing very similar styles to what he played in college.”
Kingsbury also insisted Mahomes’ intelligence will help him acclimate and pointed to the marketing major being voted the Big 12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the conference’s coaches in December.
Mahomes is a humble, laid-back leader whose teammates love him, Kingsbury said, and his desire to learn and improve shines through.
“It’s all about going to the right team, the right organization,” Mahomes said. “I just want to get coached really hard. I want to have every chance to go out there and prove my game every single day.”
Kingsbury is convinced the team that bets on Mahomes won’t be sorry.
“With his arm talent and his athletic ability and his mind for the game, when he continues to focus on football year-round, he’s just going to take off,” Kingsbury said. “I think people that see that and the teams that see that are going to really get a steal in the draft.”
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/abj.sports.