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Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians will face Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes on Sunday, but he could have easily coached him.
In 2017, the Arians coached the Arizona Cardinals and the team planned to select Mahomes with the 13th pick in the draft, league sources told ESPN. Prior to this project, the Cardinals sent a large contingent of officials, including Arians and team chairman Michael Bidwell, to Texas Tech to work on Mahomes.
What they saw that day stayed with them.
“He’s probably had the best training of any kid I’ve been and worked with personally – he and Andrew Luck were hands down the two members of the board,” Arians recalled last week as he prepared for Sunday’s game against Mahomes. “Incredible capacity.”
Arizona was planning on taking Mahomes and even tried to trade the draft for him. But before they could do that, the Chiefs beat them, trading in 10th place, three spots ahead of Arizona.
It changed the course of both franchises, and the Arians will call it back again on Sunday. The Cardinals remained at No.13, drafted Temple linebacker Haason Reddick in 2017 and then quarterback Josh Rosen in 2018.
The Arians retired as coach after the 2017 season before returning to the league as Tampa Bay coach ahead of the 2019 season.
This day the Cardinals spent in Lubbock, Texas also contributed to another outcome. This gave Cardinals officials the chance to spend a lot of time with then Red Raiders coach Kliff Kingsbury, who left his own mark on team officials.
A year later, Arizona hired Kingsbury as their head coach.
Arizona lost to Mahomes but landed at Kingsbury, which also led to Kyler Murray landing.
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