Is Chris Oladokun More of a Patrick Mahomes Clone Than Dylan Raiola?

When you’re the best of your generation like Patrick Mahomes, you’re going to inspire some imitators. And the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has certainly done that over the course of his 7+ year reign at Arrowhead Stadium.

Mahomes’ most famous and well-known clone is Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola, who just wrapped his sophomore season with the Cornhuskers. They went 7-5 and will play in the Las Vegas Bowl as they saw a slight regression from last season. Raiola and Mahomes share a lot of similarities—both football and non-football—and Raiola has really leaned into those as well.

They both wear No. 15, they both play for teams that wear red jerseys, they look similar, often have the same hairstyle, and the same sunglasses. They even jog similarly and play football the same way. Their throwing mechanics and ability to throw off-platform are uncannily close.

And a lot of that has to do with the fact that Raiola has trained with Mahomes and has enlisted Mahomes’ private QB coach to improve his quarterbacking abilities. Even Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule has said that Raiola models a lot of his game after Mahomes. Go figure.

But it looks like Raiola’s going to have some competition for the title of best Mahomes clone.

Chris Oladokun is very reminiscent of Patrick Mahomes in voice and action

After Mahomes went down with a torn ACL a couple of weeks ago, Gardner Minshew came into the game. The next week, Minshew tore his own ACL. That opened the door for 28-year-old Chris Oladokun to get his first real NFL action. (He played five meaningless snaps in K.C.’s meaningless 38-0 loss in Week 18 last year).

Oladokun wasn’t great in his debut, coming on in relief for Minshew, but he wasn’t awful either. He was 11-for-16 for 111 yards, though he took four sacks. After the game, the resemblances with Mahomes started to creep through. Most notably, Oladokun’s voice.

One of Mahomes’ most notable traits is his unique voice, which sounds froggy and a little raspy like a cross between Kermit the Frog and the Cookie Monster. As you can hear from that video, Oladokun’s voice is almost a carbon copy.

So Oladokun has the voice, but can he play like Mahomes?

The 2022 seventh-round pick started on Christmas Day against the Denver Broncos and played a very competitive contest against the top seed in the AFC, only losing 20-13 in a game that was tied with under two minutes left. After a Broncos score, Oladokun actually drove K.C. down the field and had a couple of shots at the end zone to tie it with under 30 seconds remaining.

In the end, he went 13-for-22 for just 66 yards and a touchdown while rushing twice for 11 yards. Paltry numbers. And certainly nothing like what Mahomes produces. However, if you look at the visuals, you start to see that the comparisons are not so crazy. Here are two plays in particular that were quite Mahomes-esque:

Oladokun may sound and look like Mahomes at times, but the South Florida/Samford/South Dakota State product certainly has a long way to go before he reaches Mahomes’ levels of success. The same goes for Mr. Raiola.