KC Wolf
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Before the 2017 NFL draft, Patrick Mahomes told PFT that the NFL’s draft advisory board had told him he’d likely be a second-round pick. As it turned out, the Chiefs traded up to take Mahomes in the first round, 10th overall.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the draft advisory board was wrong at the time they gave him the second-round grade. Mahomes said on the WHOOP podcast that he believes his hard work in the months before the draft significantly improved his draft stock.
“I had gotten like a second- or third-round grade from the draft advisory board, which is usually pretty accurate,” Mahomes said, via the Kansas City Star. “And so I kind of just told myself that these next few months, I’m gonna put everything I have into making my body be in the best shape possible. My conditioning, the way I eat, everything like that, and I worked my tail off, and I was able to get drafted with the 10th pick overall. And so just to make that climb and to know that all that hard work that I put in was was paying off, it kind of jump-started my career of knowing that that’s how I need to work at all times if I want to continue to be successful.”
The draft advisory board is far from perfect in its projections of where players will get drafted. It doesn’t hurt for a prospect to seek out the advisory board’s opinion, but a player has a few months after declaring for the draft to improve his draft stock. Mahomes did just that.