Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL and LCL with less than two minutes left in a Week 15 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on December 14, 2025. The injury ended his season and knocked the Kansas City Chiefs out of the play-offs for the first time since 2014. Nine months later, he threw two touchdown passes and ran for another in his first game back. The Chiefs have not lost since.
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What the injury cost him
Mahomes was forced off the field in the fourth quarter of that December game, and the Chiefs later confirmed the torn ligament, his first serious injury in nine NFL seasons. The loss dropped Kansas City to 6-8 with three games still to play, in what had already become the team’s third straight defeat. Head coach Andy Reid had taken the Chiefs to the play-offs in each of his previous ten seasons in charge, and to the Super Bowl in five of the past six. Mahomes posted on X the same day. “Don’t know why this had to happen,” he wrote, adding that he would “be back stronger than ever.”
He had surgery the next day, in Texas. He reached training camp over the summer, at Missouri Western State University, with a plan to come back stronger. Playing in Week 1 had been his target all along. “This has always been the goal,” he said. He had not taken a live rep since the Chargers game.
The comparison a pundit couldn’t resist
Sky Sports commentator Neil Reynolds contrasted that offseason with the one Liverpool manager Arne Slot took after winning the Premier League two seasons ago, when Slot was DJing in Ibiza and his players were on yachts. Mahomes, by contrast, spent seven hours a day at the Chiefs’ training facility all through the offseason. Reid confirmed as much to Reynolds over the summer.
Two wins, and a knee that held
Kansas City protected him carefully once the season began. Mahomes wore a brace through the Chiefs’ 31-10 win over the Denver Broncos in the Monday night opener, and the coaching staff kept his average time to throw down to 2.27 seconds, never letting a drop-back run past four. He still capped the opening drive with a 15-yard touchdown run. “You just try and get in the end zone,” he said afterwards, when asked whether nine months on the sideline had made him cautious. He finished the night with 184 passing yards and two touchdown throws, and running back Kenneth Walker III, signed as a free agent on a three-year, $43.1m deal after winning Super Bowl MVP with Seattle, added 173 rushing yards and two scores of his own on his Chiefs debut. Mahomes also found Kelce for a 59-yard gain that set up a Butker field goal.
A tougher test followed a week later against the Indianapolis Colts. Mahomes threw for 382 yards and three touchdowns as the game went to overtime, and Travis Kelce, the 36-year-old tight end who is engaged to Taylor Swift, caught nine passes for 101 yards and a score. Indianapolis had a chance to win outright in overtime after a disputed fumble ruling went their way, but the Colts chose to kick a field goal on fourth-and-8 rather than go for it. Kansas City drove back down the field, and Harrison Butker’s 40-yard field goal as time expired settled it, 33-30. Walker added 117 rushing yards in that game. “Guys were resilient,” Mahomes said afterwards, adding that the win “wasn’t always pretty.”
It was the second year running that the Chiefs had beaten the Colts on a kick at the very end of overtime.
