Chiefs general manager Brett Veach explains how he knew Patrick Mahomes was special before he ever took an NFL snap

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Chiefs general manager Brett Veach explains how he knew Patrick Mahomes was special before he ever took an NFL snap
Patrick Mahomes

Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

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Patrick Mahomes has shown he's one of the best players in the NFL in his two years in the league, but the Chiefs knew he was special well before then.

  • Patrick Mahomes has been amongst the most dominant players in the NFL for two seasons since taking the starting job in Kansas City two years ago.
  • He won NFL MVP in his first year as a starter, and this past season led the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl title in 50 years.
  • Chiefs general manager Brett Veach was one of the key decision-makers responsible for pushing Kansas City to draft Mahomes with the 10th pick in the 2017 draft.
  • As Veach told ESPN's Adam Schefter, he knew Mahomes was special well before he ever took an NFL snap.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Patrick Mahomes has been one of the most unstoppable players in the NFL since taking over the starting role in Kansas City two seasons ago.

Mahomes led three successive double-digit comebacks in the postseason, capping off his streak of comebacks with an epic fourth-quarter performance in Super Bowl LIV against a 49ers defense that had dominated the league all season, leading the Chiefs to lift the Lombardi Trophy for the first time in 50 years.

While Mahomes' greatness has been no secret since his breakout MVP season in 2018, the Chiefs knew they had something special in the young quarterback well before he made his NFL debut.

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As Chiefs general manager Brett Veach told ESPN's Adam Schefter on "The Adam Schefter Podcast," Mahomes was a standout from the moment he took the practice field for the team.

"Sometimes you take for granted that you're seeing some of the best in the world, and all of a sudden this kid comes in," Veach said. "This is right after we drafted him - from the first rookie minicamp to the OTAs to the training camp. This kid just makes these unbelievably gifted players look average. ... It takes a lot for someone to make these talented players look like college players or like high school players. But he steps on the field and he has the innate ability…to just be in total control."

Veach said that while Mahomes was still just running the scout team for the Chiefs, he was sending the team's defensive starters into fits. "This is when we were running him with the third-team look-team, just making our first-team defense look bad," Veach said. "You knew once Coach Reid cut him loose, the league was going to be in for something special."

"You know what you see. You trust your eyes, you trust your gut. And with him, it was so obvious."

Veach went on to say that during Mahomes' first training camp, the coaching staff would immediately go back to watch the film of their future starter's practice, in disbelief with what they had just seen on the field.

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"He's had some unbelievable plays at this level in primetime games, but there are some throws in camp that I still to this day have never seen, and don't know quite frankly how he completed those throws," Veach said. "There's some stuff in the archives that would blow your mind."

Veach had been an advocate to bring Mahomes to the Chiefs since watching his college tape, telling head coach Andy Reid that he was the "best player he had ever seen," based on his play at Texas Tech.

Two years and one Super Bowl ring later, the rest of the NFL world has caught up with what Veach saw all along.

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