Patrick Mahomes has become the face of the NFL. With three Super Bowl rings in five years, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback is already making a case to be considered among the all-time greats at just 28.
But what if the NIL deals existed in 2017? Mahomes entered the league as a first-round pick out of Texas Tech University that year, but it looks like the Chiefs were lucky that college athletes couldn’t get paid back then.
“It would have been a good amount of money, especially for Lubbock, Texas,” said Mahomes, via The Kansas City Star. “If I would have been able to get NIL, I probably would have stayed for my senior year, and who knows what the rest of my NFL history would have been?“
The Name, Image and Likeness policy that allows college athletes to get financial compensation became effective in 2021. But if this was allowed a few years earlier, Mahomes may have stayed in college for longer.
Patrick Mahomes celebrating Super Bowl LVIII.
Needless to say, this could’ve changed everything for the Chiefs, who may have not had the chance to trade up in the 2018 Draft like they did in 2017. And it might have completely changed the course of Mahomes’ career as well, and the NFL would therefore look completely different today.
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While Mahomes suggested he’d have delayed his entry to the NFL if NIL deals had existed earlier, the Chiefs quarterback admitted what he regrets the most about his college days is not having the same mentality that helped him succeed in Kansas City.
“I give y’all one thing: if I don’t give y’all anything from this entire speech that I learned from my time at Texas Tech and in the NFL, and it’s what I live by today, is when you play this game, you got to be all in,” Mahomes said.
“You got to be all-in on everything you do. And if I have one regret about my time at Texas Tech, I don’t believe I truly was all in. We had great offenses and exciting teams. I got drafted in the first round, but was I all in? Was I all in on doing whatever it took in my extra time to win that Big 12 championship? And so, when I look back at my career, I don’t believe I was. I went to class, practiced hard, worked out, and had a good time. I had a great time, but you could do all that and still be great in everything you do.”
