The Bears would have ruined Mahomes

The Bears would have ruined Mahomes

I'm surprised Pace talked to Mahomes.

I'm surprised Pace talked to Mahomes.

Lotta revisionist history. I'm a proud Mitch hater but it's not insane that he was picked before Mahomes. There was no consensus no 1 and more than a few rankings had him either 1 or 2 out of the three. If anything there was more clarity about Watson while not much separated Mahomes and (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky. So Parkins is being revisionist when he claims Pace screwed up by not picking Mahomes. What was insane was trading up to draft (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky: if anything in that draft you trade down from 3 to grab one of the three, since there was no consensus must have QB between the three.

But he did screw up. It was his job to evaluate the players in question and he fell in love with a 1 year starter from a fringe college program who turned out to be a complete bust. Trading up to get him made it even worse. It really doesn't matter what the mock draft "experts" thought about it unless you think that a GM should just pick whoever Mel Kiper's has as the best remaining on the board.

But he did screw up. It was his job to evaluate the players in question and he fell in love with a 1 year starter from a fringe college program who turned out to be a complete bust. Trading up to get him made it even worse. It really doesn't matter what the mock draft "experts" thought about it unless you think that a GM should just pick whoever Mel Kiper's has as the best remaining on the board.

That's not a fair reading of mock drafts. By mock drafts I don't mean bloggers from Bleacher Report I mean the collective wisdom from NFL personnel executives and scouts. No one predicted this out of Mahomes. If you want to say pace should have seen that then fine but then he's not the only one who missed out on him.

Here are anonymous scouts for example ranking (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky #1. You'll find others where it's Watson #1 and so on. I think Pace is an idiot and incompetent but I can't say he is alone in failing to project Mahomes' potential.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/n ... 100817778/

Well the Chiefs traded 2 firsts and a 3rd to draft Mahomes, so I'd say somebody saw him as a star. Is Joe Douglas (Jets GM) blameless for drafting Zach Wilson?

I don't think that really says they saw him as a star. They obviously liked his potential but they took a big chance that they left without a star quarterback by waiting so long to pick him.

Pace's problem wasn't picking (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky over Mahomes or Watson. It was that he was so sure that (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky was better that he wasn't even willing to take either of the other two as a backup plan.

Isn’t that what you want out of your GM though? To be sure that the player he’s taking is better than the other ones he is considering?

I'm not sure the Bowie analogy works. Portland already had a great wing, and the league was still tailored to big men. Bowie was a great athletic big. He just had Walton feet. In hindsight, Houston takes Jordan #1. In retrospect, the Browns should have taken Mahomes #1. If Fields becomes a pro bowl player, but a quarterback in this draft becomes a HoF player, can you blame the Bears for not taking him? That's what we do with Jordan v Bowie.

The Philadelphia Eagles once conducted an analysis of the success rate for first-round picks, defining success as drafting a player who became a full-time starter for at least two of his first four seasons, and determined there was about a 50-50 chance of hitting on a player no matter where in the first round he was taken. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/spor ... draft.html

Pace tended to fall in love with guys, it seemed the other GM's knew this and knew they would count on good ole' Ryan to hand over a draft pick or two to go fetch some guy he had way too high on his board because he felt was smarter than the rest of the GM's, he tended to value one year wonder guys that put up good combine numbers over guys that had played at a high level in college.

Remember watching a pre season game in Mahomes rookie year where he came in late in the second half, his arm talent jumped off the screen, was making throws far superior to anything Mitch could do, you could easily see he was a far superior prospect, but the Mitch pick looks relatively solid when you compare it to White (one year wonder/combine guy) over Cooper.