Both Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes have looked stellar during the Kansas City Chiefs’ first two preseason games. For his part, Mahomes was promoted to the second team over Tyler Bray after his NFL preseason debut earlier in the summer.
This led to speculation that the Texas Tech product might be fast-tracked to a starting role for a team in contention to win the AFC West.
Head coach Andy Reid is now here to throw that whole idea out the window.
“It’s Alex’s job. That’s what it is. There’s no gray area with that,” Reid said, via Terez Paylor of the Kansas City Star.
Mahomes completed 17-of-23 passes for 137 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions in his first two preseason games. Meanwhile, Smith completed a whopping 80 percent of his passes with a touchdown and zero picks.
It’s in this that the Chiefs themselves are in a good spot. There’s really no reason to rush Mahomes with Smith acting like a top-end quarterback in his own right.
With that said, it will be interesting to see how snaps are allocated in Kansas City’s third preseason game this week. The team knows what it has in Smith and might want to give Mahomes extensive run with the starters. Despite Reid’s comments, that could lead to further speculation that Mahomes will unseat Smith.