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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes is in year 2 of a 10 year, $450 million contract with the Kansas City Chiefs. For the 2022 season, he, alone, gobbled up 17.2% of the team’s salary cap, according to spotrac.com.
Mahomes is the most talented player in the league, so neither the Chiefs, nor any other team if given the chance, would hesitate to allocate so much to a single player. He’s the exception to the rule.
Still, what goes to one player can’t go to all the others, namely the 52 others needed to win games.
It’s why there remains the theory that the winning formula for teams is having a great quarterback on a relatively cheap rookie contract — as Kansas City’s Super Bowl opponent, Philadelphia (Jalen Hurts, $1.6 million cap hit) or AFC championship game rival Cincinnati (Joe Burrow, $9.8 million) enjoy. Then you spend some of that extra cash on a number of important pieces.
And that is probably true.
Well, unless you are the Chiefs and can find an old school way around this conundrum; namely by absolutely crushing the draft the last three years and stocking the roster with a key contributors that come cheap, even if the quarterback doesn’t.
Kansas City has made 22 selections across the last three NFL Drafts. Due to their success during that period, they never had a selection above 21st overall (2022). They had no first rounder in 2021 and picked 32nd in 2020.
Yet general manager Brett Veach and his staff have been on a heater. As much as Mahomes and Travis Kelce and Chris Jones and coach Andy Reid are getting deerved praise, this was truly an organizational trip to the Super Bowl.
The Kansas City Chiefs drafted running back Isiah Pacheco (10) in the seventh round, and he’s been a key contributor in the playoffs as a rookie. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Seventeen of those 22 selections played in the AFC title game, including 10 of whom played at least half the snaps. And they came from all over the draft, from first to the late rounds. There was…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/patrick-mahomes-chiefs-wouldnt-be-in-another-super-bowl-without-an-incredible-success-rate-in-the-draft-031327878.html?src=rss
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2023-01-31 03:13:27
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