The Kansas City Chiefs did it. They drafted their first quarterback in the first round since Todd Blackledge in 1983. So when do we get to see him?

The Chiefs still have Alex Smith firmly in place as their starting quarterback for now. So what is the ideal timeline for the newly drafted Patrick Mahomes II? Let’s find out.

Smith’s current contract is slated to run until the end of the 2018 season, and comes with a cap hit of $37.5 million over that time frame. The Chiefs should easily be able to cut/trade Smith at the end of the 2017 season with just a $3.6 million hit in dead cap space for 2018. As it currently stands the Chiefs are already $2.8mil over the cap for 2018. The Chiefs also have several key free agents they may be looking to hold on to including:

Bennie Logan DT, UFA

Dustin Colquitt P, UFA

Anthony Sherman FB, UFA

Albert Wilson WR, UFA

Cairo Santos K, UFA

Gavin Escobar TE, UFA

Phillip Gaines CB, UFA

De’Anthony Thomas WR, UFA

Zach Fulton G/C, UFA

Cutting or trading Smith after 2017 would give the Chiefs roughly $15mil in cap space, and give the Chiefs an opportunity to retain some of these guys. That would mean Patrick Mahomes II would go into the 2018 offseason as the Day 1 starter. The Chiefs will also likely need to target a veteran backup QB.

Going back to 2017, Mahomes should be slated as the No. 2 quarterback on the depth chart, unless the Chiefs are adamant about giving Mahomes a redshirt year. We know that they do like Tyler Bray as he’s now going into his 5th year with the team, and he has fought off other late round QB prospects in the past. Bray gives the Chiefs a chance to really not force the issue with putting Mahomes on the field in 2017.

My suggestion would be to keep Mahomes on the bench unless Smith suffers a season-ending injury. There are a lot of concerns with Mahomes transferring from the air raid offense at Texas Tech to the complex West Coast offense Andy Reid runs. As well, there are many concerns about his atrocious footwork. So for at least 2017, he should only be worried about soaking up knowledge from Smith and Reid.

The most we will likely see of Mahomes before 2018 will be in the preaseason, where I expect him to start at least one game. Until then we’ll just have to keep on dreaming about the potential connection between Mahomes and Tyreek Hill.