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Patrick Mahomes could overtake Alex Smith quickly

By Sayre Bedinger

FORT WORTH, TX - OCTOBER 29: Patrick Mahomes II #5 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders throws against the TCU Horned Frogst in the first half at Amon G. Carter Stadium on October 29, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
FORT WORTH, TX - OCTOBER 29: Patrick Mahomes II #5 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders throws against the TCU Horned Frogst in the first half at Amon G. Carter Stadium on October 29, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /
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The Kansas City Chiefs may have more of a quarterback battle on their hands than expected. Patrick Mahomes has looked phenomenal…

Over the past few years, we’ve seen exactly what Alex Smith brings to the table. He’s a solid, yet unspectacular quarterback capable of orchestrating an offense and making plays with both his arm and legs.

So why did the Chiefs trade two first round picks for Patrick Mahomes?

The answer to that question is pretty simple. The Chiefs needed to at least pursue an upgrade, and Mahomes has rare arm talent and athleticism. Not only that, but Smith’s contract situation is such that the Chiefs would be handicapped with him as their quarterback and perhaps have to sacrifice other talent on the roster they would prefer not to.

The plan seems to be to have Smith start this year and help the Chiefs compete for a title before getting let go next offseason, but will Mahomes force the issue sooner?

At least in terms of getting on the field, Mahomes looks like he’s ready to start slinging passes on Sundays. There’s so much more to it than what we can see in just a few training camp practices, but Mahomes looks pretty freaking awesome.

See for yourself:

Like I said before, it’s not too tough for these guys to do that kind of stuff in practice. The real test will come when he’s on the field against a live defense and playing with something at stake.

However, this is all we have to go off of, and the Chiefs may have a much shorter leash for Alex Smith because of what we’ve seen from Mahomes so far.

Kansas City has to realize it has a nice little championship window right now. Their defense is extremely talented, and the offense has some pieces in Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. The missing piece could very well be Patrick Mahomes, and the more the Chiefs see him drop dimes like we’re seeing in these videos, the more willing they may be to throw him out onto the field.

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The situation with the Chiefs, Alex Smith, and Patrick Mahomes is eerily similar to the one we saw with the Denver Broncos when Jay Cutler was a rookie back in 2006. Incumbent starter Jake Plummer was good enough to get the Broncos to a certain point in the playoffs, but ultimately, the aggressiveness of Mike Shanahan caused him to make the decision to put the rookie Cutler onto the field late in a playoff push.

That decision wound up costing the Broncos a shot at the playoffs, because as talented as Cutler was with a big time arm, he wasn’t quite ready to be put into that kind of situation.

That’s why it makes sense that we could see the Chiefs pull the plug on Smith sooner rather than later. If Mahomes looks ready after training camp, it’s a nice problem for the Chiefs to have, and I think we’ll see Mahomes out on the field sooner than a lot of people anticipated when he was drafted.

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