The Kansas City Chiefs’ season turned from bad to worse on Sunday. Not only did the three-time reigning AFC champions saw their already slim playoff hopes go up in smoke entirely, thanks to a 16-13 loss to the division rival Los Angeles Chargers, the team also lost its most important player to a major injury.
Trying to mount a comeback in the fourth quarter, quarterback Patrick Mahomes left the pocket to his right in hopes of extending a play and getting the Chiefs into potential scoring range. However, in doing so his left knee buckled and he remained on the ground with what later turned out to be a torn ACL.
“Don’t know why this had to happen. And not going to lie [it] hurts,” Mahomes later wrote on social media.
While the 30-year-old himself is faced with questions about undergoing surgery and heading into a length recovery process, his team is left wondering where to turn next. For the Chiefs, it is now time to adapt to a life without their Hall of Fame quarterback.
Short-term impact of Mahomes’ injury
After Mahomes left the field just inside the two-minute warning on Sunday, he was replaced by Kansas City’s backup quarterback, Gardner Minshew. A veteran of seven NFL seasons, who is on his fifth team since entering the league as a sixth-round draft choice in 2019, Minshew was unable to salvage the afternoon for the Chiefs. In his five snaps in place of Mahomes, he went 3-for-5 for 22 yards and a game-ending interception.
Nonetheless, Minshew is expected to take on the starting spot and lead the team through the final three games of the season once Mahomes is officially moved to injured reserve. For the Chiefs, that stretch will have no impact on the playoff outlook — they are, as mentioned above, eliminated — but it will determine their draft position in 2026 and, to a degree, whether or not Minshew is a viable long-term option as QB2.
Naturally, though, he will not remain the only quarterback to move up the depth chart. Unless the team decides to add more depth, practice squad member Chris Oladokun is the new second-stringer. Oladokun has appeared in one game over the course of his four years in the league.
Oladokun taking Mahomes’ spot on the 53-man team is not a given, though. NFL teams, after all, are allowed to elevate practice squad players to the game day roster three times per season, and he still has all three of those elevations available.
If Kansas City still wants to bolster its depth on the active roster, there are other options available (without going down the Philip Rivers Memorial Rabbit Hole). Granted, none of them would be particularly sexy signings, but players such as Bailey Zappe or Shane Buechele, who currently reside on the Browns’ and Bills’ practice squads, respectively, would add some experience both in the NFL and the Chiefs’ system to back up Minshew.
Regardless of what they will do, the Chiefs’ quarterback position immediately went from a definitive strength to a major issue. Add the fact that the team has struggled even with Mahomes at the helm, and Kansas City might be in for a challenging three games from an offensive perspective.
Long-term impact of Mahomes’ injury
If you visited your social media platform of choice in the aftermath of Mahomes’ ACL tear, chances are you found some comparisons with Tom Brady. Like Mahomes, the greatest quarterback of all time also suffered a torn ACL in his ninth season. That is where those comparisons need to stop, however.
Brady’s injury happened 15 snaps into the Patriots’ 2008 season opener. Mahomes went down on his 930th this year in mid-December. Besides no two injuries being the same, the recovery timeline for the latter looks different than it did for the former, who was back in action for New England’s 2009 training camp and eventually ready for the regular season that year.
The better comparison might therefore be Bengals QB Joe Burrow. In late November 2020, Burrow tore the ACL in his left knee and subsequently underwent surgery. Eight months later, he was back in action; avoiding the physically unable to perform list, he was a participant in training camp and went on to start 20 games en route to leading Cincinnati to the Super Bowl in 2021. Burrow was later voted the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year.
Of course, all of this comes with a big caveat: on top of tearing his ACL, Burrow also hurt his MCL, PCL and meniscus. The severity of Mahomes’ injury and whether any other ligaments are damaged is of yet to be determined.
Still, Burrow’s case shows that a comparatively swift return from a torn ACL is a possibility. Even adding a few weeks difference between his injury and Mahomes’ would put a return at some point in training camp 2026 in play.
Again, however, all of this depends on the details of the injury as well as how his body responds to the rehabilitation process. At the very least, the Chiefs need to be prepared to go through their offseason workouts without their QB1 as a full participant.
On top of that, Mahomes’ injury also shines a light on Kansas City’s shortcomings overall. While a freak accident that could happen at any point in an NFL game, it did occur on a play the Chiefs have become all too familiar with this season: the quarterback being forced to use his improvisational skills to make something happen out of nothing.
Sure, they have always relied on Mahomes’ abilities in that area — it is one of his best traits — but 2025 still was different than the past. With his supporting cast struggling, and the 30-year-old himself nursing a knee ailment even before Sunday, the operation was off at multiple points this year.
It doesn’t take an injury to conclude that something needed to change, but it does highlight that the situation has become untenable.
Don’t be surprised if the Chiefs end up using their best draft pick in years to help repair the offense around their quarterback, all while he himself will be focused on coming back from what is the first major injury of his career.
