Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes Reacts to Kliff Kingsbury Hire by Commanders: 'No Restrictions!'
LAS VEGAS - There are the incendiary surface judgments of what the Washington Commanders are doing with their coaching staff, ranging from the howls that the hiring of Dallas Cowboys assistant Dan Quinn as the head coach is "boring" to the hoots from the likes of ESPN's Stephen A. Smith that Quinn's hiring of Kliff Kingsbury as the new offensive coordinator smacks of racism.
Those opinions have been given a forum - even though they come largely from "experts" who have never met or spoken to Quinn or Kingsbury.
Maybe we should provide a forum for the opinion of Patrick Mahomes, who is centerstage here at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas ... and who actually knows Kingsbury?
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“It’s someone who’s taught me a ton,” Mahomes said of his coach at Texas Tech. “He got me, kind of out of high school, where I was a baseball player trying to play football. Basically, trying to be on my own. You’re leaving the household and kind of being on your own, and he helped me become who I am today.”
Mahomes spent three seasons in Lubbock, developing into a star under Kingsbury's guidance. The success there led to the coach getting hired as the boss with the Arizona Cardinals and led to Mahomes being selected by the Chiefs with the 10th overall pick of the NFL Draft.
The Cardinals thing didn't quite work out.
The Chiefs thing kinda did, as Mahomes is back in the Super Bowl again, this Sunday pitted against the San Francisco 49ers.
Kingsbury is known as a QB guru. That can work in Washington, where the Commanders have the No. 2 overall pick in the draft ... with Kliff's most recent work being with USC QB Caleb Williams.
Mahomes endorses all of it.
“I think the biggest thing is, you see, with a lot of young quarterbacks is whenever they get to a coach, they kind of try to restrict them and kind of make them be this model of how the quarterback position is supposed to be played,” Mahomes said. “And I think (Kingsbury) was early in the game of just saying, ‘Hey, let’s maximize your strengths.’ He would teach me here and there how to be more mechanical and get in the pocket and the fundamentals of the game, but he never restricted who I was.”
Maybe the critics will end up being right; only time will tell. But for the moment? There is no way the critics know more about what Kliff Kingsbury can do for Washington than Patrick Mahomes ... because of what Kingsbury did for him.
