After Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes undergoes surgery on a torn ACL in his left knee, he'll face a road to recovery that puts 2026 in the unknown.
The Kansas City Chiefs, and fans, need some good news after being eliminated from the playoffs and learning that quarterback Patrick Mahomes suffered a torn ACL in his left knee that will season-ending ending and is expected to have surgery on. Chiefs longtime head coach Andy Reid confirmed that Mahomes is expected to undergo surgery later this week but is first seeking a second opinion from Dallas Cowboys’ head team physician Dr. Daniel Cooper.
The worry often with torn knee ligaments is that the surrounding area takes a hit with it as well. That complicates not only surgery, but recovery timelines. Thankfully for Kansas City, Reid also announced that an MRI scan Sunday night showed that Mahomes didn’t suffer major damage to any other ligaments, per Nate Taylor of ESPN. Mahomes tore his ACL in the final two minutes of the team’s 16-13 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday. The loss also took them out of playoff contention for the first time in eleven seasons.
Here is the full story on Roundtable Sports about Mahomes’ injury and the end of the Chiefs’ hopes at a fourth-straight Super Bowl berth.
Mahomes will have a length rehab process ahead of him after undergoing surgery. He’ll miss the team’s offseason program entirely. The average recovery timetable in the NFL has seen some guys come back in as soon as 6 months, while others may take as long as 12. It’s based on several factors, including the extent of said tear, additional damage, surgery, age, etc. The usual timeline is around 8 or 9-12 months. That best case scenario places Mahomes back in play around September, if everything goes as well as possible. The worst case keeps him out until December of next season.
It's the first real long term injury Mahomes has sustained in his career, with the most notable injuries being turf toe that required surgery and a high ankle sprain. He hasn’t missed more than two games.
"He'll attack it, just like he does everything else," Reid said of Mahomes' recovery and rehab road ahead. "There have been some pretty good quarterbacks who have had the same injury, and they've done pretty well after they came back. He'll get after it, and he's got good people here to rehab him. He'll be right on top of all of that.”
He’s not wrong, barring that surgery goes well – as it’s expected to.