John Elway's revisionist history about Broncos wanting Patrick Mahomes should infuriate fans

The 2017 NFL Draft went on to change the landscape of the AFC West for the foreseeable future and perhaps John Elway and the Denver Broncos could have prevented that from being the case (or at least making sure it was them who benefitted).

With the 10th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs moved up from the 27th pick to select Patrick Mahomes out of Texas Tech and, much to Broncos fans' chagrin, the rest is history. Mahomes and the Chiefs have owned the AFC West (and the AFC) in recent years, winning their third Super Bowl in the last five years.

Mahomes has also had no problem rolling through the division during his time in the league. Since entering the AFC West, Mahomes has terrorized the Broncos, winning 12 of 13 games against them. He's only lost two games to the Raiders and two to the Chargers as well, so this division has not been challenging for him whatsoever.

According to Elway, who served as the Broncos GM and Executive VP of Football Operations from 2012 to 2020, the Broncos "really liked" Mahomes when he was coming out of college to enter the draft.

John Elway claims the Broncos "really liked Patrick Mahomes

Now, it's worth noting that even if the Broncos had made a move to trade up and select Mahomes, there's no guarantee that he'd be the same player he is with the Chiefs. Mahomes entered a near-perfect situation in Kansas City, getting sit and learn behind Alex Smith for a year and having Andy Reid as his head coach.

The Broncos were heading into year one of the Vance Joseph era and we know how that turned out. Expecting him to turn Mahomes into what he's become under Reid is unrealistic.

The important thing here, however, is that if the Broncos really liked Mahomes and ended up targeting him is that it would have meant KC didn't get him. We didn't know at the time how good Mahomes was going to be but if the Chiefs didn't draft the Texas Tech product, they probably stick with Alex Smith for at least the final two years on his contract and don't sniff a Super Bowl, as Broncos fans were accustomed.

I'm not sure how much Broncos fans will believe Elway's comments considering it's so easy to say in hindsight that executives liked a player who turned out to be really good. If he is telling the truth, why didn't the team go for Mahomes? They took Paxton Lynch in the first round the year prior, so was that why they weren't aggressive in targeting Mahomes? Did they think he'd be available late in the first round (Denver had the 20th pick)?

Whatever the reason might be, this is a comment that Broncos fans might have done better without knowing.