Why Patrick Mahomes’ won-lost record at Texas Tech didn’t matter to the Chiefs

Patrick Mahomes went 10th overall in the NFL draft on Thursday to the Chiefs, who traded up to land him. That’s despite Mahomes posting a 13-16 record in three seasons at Texas Tech. Houston really, really wanted him.

In the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, there’s this headline: Why Patrick Mahomes Could Be the Next Jay Cutler.

Reporters Jim Chairusmi and Michael Salfino note that since 1996, nearly a dozen quarterbacks with losing college records have been taken in the first two rounds of the draft. None has turned into a superstar; the best among them is Cutler, who’s had 11 up-and-down seasons and played to a 68-71 record with the Broncos and Bears.

NFL coaching legend Bill Parcells told the Journal there’d need to be “very, very strong extenuating circumstances” that led to a QB losing in college before succeeding as a pro. Losing stinks, but in Mahomes’ case, there are those circumstances.For the three years Mahomes played in Lubbock, Texas Tech had the worst defense of any team in college football’s Power 5 conferences. There were 128 FBS teams, and Texas Tech finished 126th, 125th, and 128th in national scoring defense. At no point did Mahomes play on a team that gave up fewer than 41 points per game.

For his part, Mahomes got buckets. His college stats are a literal outrage. He played in 32 games at Tech, and he went over 300 passing yards in 22 of them. He had more than 800 yards of personal offense in a game last year against Oklahoma, the most ever in a single game, and then said he wished he’d played better.

Texas Tech lost because Texas Tech couldn’t play defense. Mahomes led top-five scoring offenses in each of the last two years. He’s as good an example as there is of why wins and losses are better viewed as team stats than individual ones.

I don’t mean to dismiss the Journal’s data out of hand. It’s clear that quarterbacks from losing college teams have generally fallen short in the NFL. But in Mahomes’ case, the gap between offense and defense makes it hard to focus on a won-lost record at all.

A more serious concern is that quarterbacks from air raid offenses, like Mahomes’ at Texas Tech, have struggled to thrive in NFL offenses. That’s a legitimate cause for worry, even if you believe in Mahomes’ ability.

But pro offenses have come in recent years to look more like the air raid. The Patriots have used scores of former air raid receivers and air raid concepts. It might be time for the league to adapt to air raid QBs on a broader scale. That would be great news for players like Mahomes.

Talent, work ethic, scheme fit, and injuries will help decide his fate. His terrible defenses at Texas Tech won’t have anything to do with it.