The Cincinnati Bengals shocking everyone with the signing of Orlando Brown Jr. extended to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, too.
While Mahomes admits it hurts his Chiefs on the field and strengthens one of their biggest rivals, he’s still happy that Brown landed somewhere willing to give him the contract while competing at the highest levels.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Mahomes said, according to Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “I still talk to Orlando. We had a friendship off the field just as much as on the field. You understand how great of a player he is. He makes Cincinnati an even better football team so that stinks for us but at the same time I’m happy for him that he got to a good place where he was able to get a good contract that he deserved and everything like that. We’ll still have that friendship, but he’s a competitor like me, so we’re going to be wanting to be able to brag about who wins that football game.”
It’s a fun comment from Mahomes, who was probably as blindsided as everyone else about the situation. So were the Bengals, considering they didn’t think Brown was a possibility at all until his reps reached out to them first.
As for Brown, he recently revealed why free agents keep picking the Bengals.
Now, Brown will start on the left side in front of Joe Burrow, with Jonah Williams moving to the right. The Chiefs signed Jawaan Taylor in free agency to compensate and also plan to have Donovan Smith in the mix at the tackle spots.
The Bengals and Chiefs meet at Arrowhead in Week 17 next season.
