“Had Me Come in to Watch Some Tape”: Chiefs Owner Clark Hunt Recalls the First Time He Discovered Patrick Mahomes

The Kansas City Chiefs have been on fire lately, winning three Super Bowls in just five seasons. It all kicked off when the owner, Clark Hunt, snagged Patrick Mahomes from Texas Tech back in 2017. Back then, nobody could have guessed just how much the team would soar with Mahomes leading the charge. Not even Clark Hunt!

In a recent chat with ESPN’s Kevin Clark, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt got all pumped up remembering about the moment he first laid eyes on Patrick Mahomes. He recalled how the team’s former GM John Dorsey and current GM Brett Veach, who was then the Chiefs’ co-director of player personnel, invited him to watch some tape.

“But he [Brett] and John Dorsey, who was our general manager had me come in and watch some tape, they wanted to show me a little bit why they were so intrigued with Patrick.”

They wanted to show him why they were so hyped about Mahomes. And boy, did they show him! They pulled up clips of Mahomes in college, throwing the ball all over the field like a pro, even racking up over 600 passing yards in some games.

Hunt stated that he saw the kind of stuff that not many are supposed to do in college, but Mahomes was out there, doing it like a boss. Well, those game tapes were enough to impress everyone and the Kansas City Chiefs drafted him as the 10th overall in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft.

How Chiefs Owner Clark Hunt Discovered the Mahomes Magic

Chiefs owner Clark Hunt also spilled the beans on what made him realize Patrick Mahomes was the real deal. Hunt admitted they didn’t fully grasp Mahomes’ potential at first, but during his rookie year in 2017, while backing up former QB Alex Smith, Mahomes caught his attention in practice.

Hunt remembered getting clips from the current GM Brett Veach, showing Mahomes pulling off jaw-dropping “no-look passes,” where he used to look somewhere else while throwing the ball accurately where he wanted to. At first, the “no-look pass” left Hunt puzzled since he only knew of such moves in basketball. To confirm, he had to ask Brett if such passes were a thing in football.

Moreover, in 2018, Patrick Mahomes became the starting quarterback. After he won the first two games of the season against the Los Angeles Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers with huge scores, Hunt knew they had something special on their hands.

The rest is history as in 2019 he took the team to their second Super Bowl victory in nearly 50 years. And it didn’t stop there. The Chiefs showed up in three more Super Bowls, clinching two more titles in 2022 and 2023. Since becoming a starter, Mahomes has led the team to the playoffs every single season for six years straight. Plus, he has totaled six Pro Bowl nods, two MVP titles, and one Offensive Player of the Year award along the way.