Patrick Mahomes is #177 among the 2017 Donruss Optic Rated Rookies, released December 20, 2017, eleven days before his first start.
The set had 200 cards: veterans, then Rookies at #101 through #150, then Rated Rookies at #151 through #200, twenty packs of four to a hobby box. Panini called the finish Optichrome. The parallels ran from Holo, about ten to a box, through Aqua at 299 and Red at 99 down to a Gold Vinyl of one.
The photograph is the one from his paper Donruss card. He wears no helmet, the red Chiefs jersey, number 15, the ball cocked behind his ear and his eyes on something far off, with stadium lights behind him. In chromium the sky turns navy. The RATED ROOKIE logo sits at the upper left, the Optic logo at the lower right, and PATRICK MAHOMES II and KANSAS CITY CHIEFS run across the bottom.
There is no Topps rookie card of him. Panini held the NFL's card rights from 2016.
No Topps rookie exists. Panini had the license.
Kansas City had traded up from twenty-seventh to tenth to draft him that April, and then sat him behind Alex Smith.
