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Friday’s PFT Live featured renewed praise for Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, who had the best statistical performance of his career on Thursday night. Which quickly became a question of whether which quarterback a team should prefer: Deshaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes was the no-brainer choice in a Twitter poll. And he also was the no-brainer choice for the Chiefs on draft day 2017.

Input received from multiple sources makes it clear that the pre-draft work led to the inescapable conclusion that Mahomes was the far better prospect. As one source put it, Mahomes was viewed as a once-in-20-years prospect.

The most obvious difference between Mahomes and Watson, as another source put it, came from Mahomes’ accuracy on deep throws and overall arm velocity demonstrated by Mahomes. Another big factor was Mahomes’ ability to make so-called “funny body” throws, finding a way to deliver the ball with the desired oomph and accuracy even when on the run or otherwise not able to use his legs or core to generate force on the throw.

“He can make any throw off platform or without generating lower body force,” another source said. “Freaky.”

That’s not a knock on Watson. He was regarded as a “fantastic kid” with a good skill set and good college game film. But the thinking was that Mahomes is a rare talent, the best player in the draft, possessing everything the Chiefs wanted in a quarterback: Arm strength, awareness, accuracy, mobility, playmaking, intelligence, etc.

Mahomes also demonstrated a significant gap over Watson by the way he quickly absorbed and regurgitated information regarding plays and concepts.

It’s unclear why none of the quarterback-needy teams in picking in the first nine that year (or the Bills, who traded out of the tenth spot) came to that same conclusion, or why the media never caught on to the perception that Mahomes was regarded by multiple coaches who know a thing or two about quarterbacks as the best player in the draft. The West Coast cabal was all over Mahomes, with men like Chiefs coach Andy Reid, Saints coach Sean Payton, and Packers coach Mike McCarthy keenly aware of the things Mahomes could do at the next level.

And it would have been very interesting to see how things would have played out in New Orleans if the Chiefs hadn’t made the move up to No. 10, one spot ahead of the Saints. Per a source who was present at the time, Saints starting quarterback Drew Brees and a couple of guests showed up unexpectedly in the Saints draft room not long before the Saints were due to be on the clock, and while Mahomes was still on the board. According to the source, the situation prompted Payton to give Brees a head’s up that the pick could indeed be a quarterback.

If the pick had been Mahomes, it’s entirely possible that he would be getting ready to play for the Saints tonight at Minnesota, and that Brees would have been playing for someone else this year.

Possibly, Brees would have been playing the Vikings.