Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL and LCL in Week 15 last season. That is the kind of injury that historically takes a quarterback nine to 12 months to fully recover from. The Chiefs’ training camp opens on July 22. Mahomes is expected to be there in some capacity, and the tone around his rehab has been consistently optimistic.
That is remarkable. The Chiefs, and the league, needed the star quarterback back on the field. The two-year Super Bowl absence Kansas City suffered last season already felt like a break from the natural order.
The Chiefs are not going to rush him. Mahomes and Andy Reid have been through enough together to know that Week 1 is not worth blowing a season. The public messaging has been that he will do individual work in camp, ramp up to team drills when the medical staff clears him, and be evaluated week by week for preseason participation.
The bigger question is what version of Mahomes shows up in September. Quarterbacks who come back from ACL injuries generally look themselves within the first month of returning. Robert Griffin III is the outlier that scared everyone, but modern surgical techniques and rehab protocols have made that scenario much less common.
Mahomes was already playing at an MVP level when he went down. He is 30, in the prime of his career, and blessed with a supporting cast that includes Rashee Rice, a healthy Xavier Worthy, and a rebuilt offensive line. Add tight end Travis Kelce, who is 36 but insists he is still going, and the offense has enough weapons to survive some rust from its quarterback.
The AFC has changed in his absence. The Bengals with Joe Burrow are still the class of the North. The Ravens with Lamar Jackson are still contenders. The Bills are still the Bills. And the Broncos of Bo Nix have become a legitimate playoff team.
But nobody in the AFC has a truly dominant team. The Chiefs’ path back to the Super Bowl exists as long as Mahomes is on the field.
The one thing to watch is his mobility. Mahomes’ game has always been built on extending plays. If the knee limits his ability to move outside the pocket, his ceiling drops. That is the version of him that scares the Chiefs’ coaching staff privately. The scans have all come back clean. But rehabbed knees can look great in a controlled environment and behave differently once he is dodging pass rushers.
Everything the Chiefs have said publicly has been positive. Everything Reid has hinted at has been positive. Nabers-level injury horror stories are not on the table here.
Mahomes at 90 percent is still probably a top-five quarterback in the league. Mahomes at 100 percent is the guy who has won three Super Bowls. Which version the Chiefs get is the entire AFC race.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
