Did Patrick Mahomes almost not end up with the Kansas City Chiefs? That’s what Sean Payton, the Saints’ ex-head coach, claims. According to the report, he picked “That’s our quarterback!”

early on.

Munich/New Orleans – Patrick Mahomes is already a Kansas City Chiefs legend despite having ten years left on his contract. In week one, the quarterback showed all his class again in the win at the Arizona Cardinals.

But this success story almost didn’t happen at all, as Sean Payton tells us. The ex-New Orleans Saints coach wanted Mahomes badly.

Payton tells draft story about Mahomes

In conversation with Colin Cowherd on “FOX,” Payton shared the anecdote about Mahomes. “We were looking at him and I said to my quarterbacks coach Joe Lombardi, ‘We’re going to get on the plane right now, nobody’s going to know we were here. That’s our quarterback!'”

Then at the 2017 NFL Draft, the opportunity presented itself for the Saints. “So we’re sitting there with our eleventh pick and we had both Mahomes and cornerback Marshon Lattimore very high up,” the 58-year-old says.

“Then when the ninth pick came through and they were still there we knew we were going to get either Mahomes or Lattimore,” Payton said.

Before the former head coach could commit to Mahomes, however, the Kansas City Chiefs threw a wrench in his plans. “The Buffalo Bills were on to 10, but they traded with the Chiefs. And that’s when we knew, ‘That’s it for Mahomes.’ We then used our pick to select Lattimore.

The Saints went with Drew Brees for another four seasons, with Brees ending his career at the end of the 2020 season. Patrick Mahomes was voted MVP in 2018, won the Super Bowl in 2019 and was in another in 2020.