NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP — Kansas City quarterback and reigning NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes will be a part of ABC’s coverage of the first round of the NFL draft on April 25.
ABC and ESPN made the announcement Monday.
Mahomes, who was the 10th overall pick by the Chiefs in 2017, will join “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts on set before the first pick.
ABC will broadcast all three days of the draft for the first time, including the first two nights in prime time. In addition to Roberts and Mahomes, ABC’s broadcast will feature co-host Rece Davis and the crew from “College GameDay.”
Mahomes led the Chiefs to the AFC championship game in his first season as a starter. He led the league with 50 touchdown passes and was second in passing yards with 5,097.
NEW YORK (AP) – Start them right away? Ease ’em in? Have them sit a whole season?
When it comes to developing young quarterbacks in the NFL, it all depends on who you talk to.
Some teams think it’s best to throw rookie QBs into the fire to learn on the job. Others prefer to gradually work them into the offense. Some say it’s more beneficial to have them grab a cap and clipboard and take it all in from the sideline.
“I think every position is the same,” Jets offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates said. “If someone can’t handle it mentally, then you don’t want to put them on the field, because naturally they’ll play slower and be thinking instead of reacting.”
Sam Darnold clearly passed that test for New York, and the No. 3 overall pick in April was under center to start the season.
“If a player shows the athletic ability, the talent and has the mental capacity to handle a gameplan and go into a game and be successful,” Bates said, “then he’s ready to play.”
That doesn’t mean things have necessarily gone smoothly for the former USC star.
Darnold’s 14 interceptions lead the league and have contributed to the Jets’ 3-6 start. So have his 55.0 percent completion rate and 68.3 quarterback rating, which also rank among the worst in the league.
Still, some point to these early struggles as crucial building blocks for the future.
“I’m going to continue to learn,” Darnold said Sunday after a 13-6 loss at Miami in which he threw four INTs. “There’s always lessons to be learned.”
Of the 32 quarterbacks currently listed as starters for their teams, 12 were under center in Week 1 of their first season.
On the flipside, some veteran superstar QBs waited a while before they got their chances.
Aaron Rodgers was stuck behind Brett Favre in Green Bay before finally starting in his fourth season. Philip Rivers didn’t start with the Chargers until his third year, when Drew Brees went to New Orleans. Even Brees didn’t get his first NFL start until his second season.
Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Alex Smith weren’t Day 1 starters, either.
“In an ideal world, it gets to be like Drew, who had a chance to watch a little, or Tom Brady and Aaron,” said former quarterback Rich Gannon, the 2002 NFL MVP and now an analyst for CBS Sports and SiriusXM NFL Radio.
Patrick Mahomes sat behind Smith in Kansas City until Week 17 as a rookie last year, and now is a leading MVP candidate as one of the NFL’s top gunslinger s with a league-leading 29 TD passes for the 8-1 Chiefs.
“We knew that Patrick was very talented, but any time that an NFL team goes with a young quarterback, usually it’s a very challenging endeavor,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said. “Sometimes it takes time, several years, but as we’ve seen, Andy (Reid) had Patrick ready to go Week 1.”
Gannon thinks the Chiefs provide the perfect blueprint.
“Mahomes had a chance to watch a master of his domain for a year,” he said. “Alex Smith knew that system inside and out, has great huddle command and leadership skills. Maybe he doesn’t throw it like Mahomes does, but this is a guy who was willing to share and help him for that year, and we’re seeing the fruits of it now.
“That’s the best situation you can have.”
Again, that depends on who you ask.
In the past three drafts, 11 quarterbacks were taken in the first round – including Darnold, Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield, Buffalo’s Josh Allen, Arizona’s Josh Rosen and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson this year.
Jackson is the only one to not yet start at least one game. Baltimore has Joe Flacco leading the huddle, but Jackson has still been used in the offense and is the Ravens’ second-leading rusher.
The Browns wanted to have Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick this year, sit and learn behind Tyrod Taylor. But like most plans in Cleveland, it backfired.
Taylor got hurt in Week 3 and Mayfield was thrust into the lineup, helping the Browns rally to beat the Jets in a nationally televised game and end a 19-game winless streak. Mayfield has shown poise and promise, but lacks playmakers and is dealing with a coaching change after Hue Jackson was fired.
In Buffalo, the Bills weren’t anticipating Allen starting in the second week. They were taking what coach Sean McDermott called a “calculated” approach. But after AJ McCarron was traded before the season opener and Nathan Peterman bombed in Week 1, McDermott was left with no choice but to turn to Allen.
The rookie has been dealing with a sprained right elbow , and is uncertain to play Sunday against the Jets.
“When you draft a quarterback like we did, there’s a part of it where you have to say, ‘Hey, he’s going to play either A, B, or C – early, middle, or late or next year.'” McDermott said. “You have to be OK with all of that.”
The initial plan in Arizona was to have Rosen learn behind Sam Bradford. All that changed when the veteran was ineffective and benched in favor of the No. 10 overall pick.
Rosen took his lumps with some turnover-filled performances. Then, Mike McCoy was fired as the Cardinals’ offensive coordinator and Bradford was later cut – leaving the job to Rosen.
“His demeanor allows him to have success,” new offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich said. “Quarterbacking in this league is hard and when things go bad, this kid tends to be fine.”
But, some say too many adverse situations could end up having long-term deleterious effects on a young player.
“When you put them in before they’re ready, they also get hurt: Josh Allen, Josh Rosen,” Gannon said. “The speed of the game is way too fast for them. … Or they have a bad experience, like what wound up happening with (the Jets’) Mark Sanchez and Geno Smith, or going back to Ryan Leaf (with the Chargers). They play right away before they are physically or mentally ready or maturity-level ready. They get benched and booed and maybe run out of town, the coach gets fired, and then the next thing, they’re on their third or fourth team. They think he will be a savior and he’s not ready to play.
“How is that being responsible from a coach and ownership standpoint? It’s doing a tremendous disservice.”
Tampa Bay’s Jameis Winston and Tennessee’ Marcus Mariota started right away after being the top two picks in 2015, but the jury’s still out on both.
For those who preach patience, 25 of the 32 current QBs started a game at some point in their rookie season. And, several held on to the job from there.
Quarterbacks such as the Rams’ Jared Goff (No. 1 in 2016) and the Bears’ Mitchell Trubisky (No. 2 in 2017) started and struggled as rookies, but benefited from changes in coaching staffs and philosophies and took leaps in their second seasons.
So, who’s right?
Well, all of the above.
“There’s certainly valuable experience when you stand and watch,” McDermott said. “But we all know there’s no substitute for the experience when you’re actually behind the wheel. There’s a lot of value to that.”
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AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner and AP Sports Writers Bob Baum, David Ginsburg, Dave Skretta, John Wawrow and Tom Withers contributed.
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Time to start the “Which coaches are on the way out?” watch in the NFL, and all eyes are on Todd Bowles of the New York Jets at the moment.
How quickly it all fell apart for them.
After going 10-6 in his first season there, the Jets are 13-29, a .310 winning percentage.
How soon could Bowles be gone? Consider that the Jets now head into a bye week. So that might make sense as a time to make a change for a club that had zero fight in it during a 41-10 loss Sunday against the visiting Buffalo Bills and quarterback Matt Barkley, of all people.
“We stunk it up as coaches,” Bowles said. “We stunk it up as players.”
All true.
Here’s another comment that was rather telling: “That’s the first time I felt like somebody really smacked us,” Jets cornerback Morris Claiborne said, “and we didn’t do nothing about it.”
Keep in mind that the Bills are nothing special. Barkley is worse than that – a has-been who never was, nearly two years removed from his most recent NFL start. But defensive guru Bowles couldn’t come up with anything to stop the guy.
Now the Jets are 3-7 and heading in the wrong direction, losers of four straight games.
Bowles shouldn’t stand alone in terms of questions about how much longer he will – or should – last in his current job.
As embarrassing as the Jets suddenly are, Bowles is hardly the only coach whose club is looking unprepared and unable to compete lately:
– Doug Marrone’s Jacksonville Jaguars somehow immediately went from AFC runners-up to also-rans, dropping five consecutive games to fall to 3-6 after a 29-26 loss to the Indianapolis Colts;
– Dirk Koetter’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers somehow beat the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles in Weeks 1 and 2 but have lost six of seven games since to sit at 3-6 after a 16-3 setback against the visiting Washington Redskins;
– Jon Gruden is not going anywhere anytime soon, of course, but his Oakland Raiders are as bad as it gets right now, going to 1-8 after losing five games in a row by at least 14 points each, the latest a 20-6 defeat at home against the Los Angeles Chargers.
“This will be a year that a lot of us will never forget,” Gruden said. “It’s painful.”
Jets fans probably feel the same way about their season.
In case you missed it, here are other top topics after the NFL season’s 10th Sunday:
ROAD, SWEET ROAD
Washington Redskins cornerback Josh Norman celebrated a road victory by blasting the NFC East leaders’ home fans, saying it seems like they “just don’t really care; they just boo everything and aren’t really behind us.” Washington is 3-1 in away games, 3-2 at home. “We can play all the games on the road, if you ask me,” said Norman, who had an acrobatic interception early, one of four turnovers forced by Washington’s defense against the Bucs. Later, Norman sent out a tweet encouraging spectators to be more supportive and enthusiastic at home. After all, with a 6-3 record, a two-game division lead over the surprisingly so-so Super Bowl champion Eagles and the Cowboys (both 4-5 after Dallas beat Philadelphia 27-20 with the help of a hurdle by Ezekiel Elliott) and an easy schedule the rest of the way, the Redskins would host a playoff game if they avoid a collapse.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!
This week’s most original TD celebration – remember when the league tried to discourage all of those with penalties and fines? – came courtesy of Kansas City Chiefs speedster Tyreek Hill. After catching one of Patrick Mahomes’ two TD passes in KC’s 26-14 win over the Arizona Cardinals, Hill hopped into the stands and grabbed ahold of a TV camera, managing to record images of some teammates whooping it up, as well as the flag he earned for unsportsmanlike conduct. Chiefs coach Andy Reid was not exactly thrilled by that aspect of the charade. “That was too much,” Reid said. “I’m all into the ‘personality’ thing, but he was … out of character there.”
BETTER THAN OMAHA
Give Los Angeles Rams QB Jared Goff credit for directing a potent offense that’s helped his team get off to a 9-1 start. Give him credit, too, for quite an audible in LA’s 36-31 victory against the Seattle Seahawks, name-checking Oscar winner Halle Berry.
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AP Pro Football Writers Dennis Waszak Jr. in East Rutherford, N.J., and Josh Dubow in Oakland, Calif., contributed to this report.
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Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich
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