They say that athleticism often runs in the family, and that’s the case with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who has a football playing half-brother in Graham Walker from Rice University. Even though Walker didn’t get drafted in the 2025 NFL draft, that doesn’t mean his football career is over.
As with many of the players who didn’t get a phone call over draft weekend, Walker still has hope and is attending minicamps. It would be pretty cool to see Walker on the Chiefs’ squad alongside his half-brother, but there’s another team that has expressed interest in him. That team is the struggling Carolina Panthers.
Patrick Mahomes’ Half-Brother Gets an Audition
The Carolina Panthers kicked off their minicamp workout sessions on Friday, May 9, and welcomed more than 40 players to the team’s practice field in Uptown Charlotte. Carolina’s tally of players for the two-day camp featured their eight draft picks, as well as 19 undrafted free-agent signees.
Walker, 23, hails from Rice University. Walker played his first three collegiate campaigns at Brown University, recorded 252 yards on 24 receptions at Rice in 2024.
But, it’s not a given that Walker will be with the Panthers. Other teams still have time to express interest. He was also at the Chiefs’ rookie minicamp last week but reportedly did not make the cut. The Kansas City Chiefs ended up going a different way, signing three players who were trying out, none of which were Walker.
Patrick Mahomes Gets Hilarious Comment from NFL Expert
In a May 9 feature for Bleacher Report, NFL expert and analyst Brad Gagnon describes each team’s urgency after 2025 NFL draft to land a solid quarterback. “Now that the NFL draft is done and the quarterback carousel has almost stopped spinning for 2025, it’s time to take the temperature of every signal-caller situation in the league,” Gagnon states in the feature.
As for methodology, Gagnon looked “primarily at age, trajectory, experience, contract, injury history and the state of the team, let’s break down every squad’s QB-need level with a single sentence for each.”
So, one of the teams, for example, with the biggest need for a quarterback is the Pittsburgh Steelers. That’s a given, since they are waiting on, of all people, Aaron Rodgers.
When it comes to the Lions, Gagnon states the obvious: Mahomes is here to stay. Gagnon literally has one sentence about Mahomes, and it is so straightforward and short that it’s hilarious.
“Future Hall of Famer Patrick Mahomes is under contract through 2031,” he says. And, that’s it. End of story.
Gagnon had a similar take on Chiefs rival the Buffalo Bills, stating, “The Approximate Value metric at Pro Football Reference registers Josh Allen as the most valuable player in the NFL since the start of 2020, and he won his first MVP in 2024. Following a fresh extension this offseason, Allen is under contract through 2030.”
He also noted that “reigning Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts is under contract through 2028.”
So, really, the three blockbuster quarterbacks of the moment are Mahomes, Hurts and Allen, and they’re all inked up for the foreseeable future.
