Patrick Mahomes didn’t want to watch that play again. Not for months.
But last week, while going through film on the Chargers, he came across the injury that ended his season, wiped out his summer and reshaped the next year of his life. It happened on this field against this opponent, so there was no avoiding it anymore.
There it was on his iPad, the moment that changed everything.
“You speed it up pretty quickly,” he said.
The memory hangs over Kansas City’s 22-6 win over the Chargers on Sunday afternoon, even if the game itself turned out to be far more straightforward than the one that preceded it in Mahomes’ mind. The Chiefs would have done even more damage if they had finished better in the red zone, but they still managed to turn their chances into touchdowns often enough to stay in control.
And for Mahomes, the afternoon carried something beyond the standings. It brought back 308 days of perspective.
On this same field, with teammates kneeling and praying around him, Mahomes lay on the grass after the injury while the Chiefs sat on the edge of being knocked out of playoff contention. The Chargers, meanwhile, were seven days from moving to 11-4 and clinching a postseason spot. At that moment, the balance around the franchise felt completely different.
Since then, it has swung hard the other way. The Chargers have not won since. Mahomes has not lost a start since.
Kansas City is 5-0, and now that sort of start actually feels like a story again. Mahomes said it himself: “Last year,” he said, “put just football in perspective.”
That perspective came from the grind of rehab and from watching how difficult sustained success really is. The Chiefs traveled to Miami Gardens last month and only three non-specialists on that flight had been part of their first Super Bowl run. The head coach and quarterback are still the same, but the rest of the roster keeps changing.
That is not the case in Los Angeles, where the contrast is obvious. A year ago, the Chargers finished five wins ahead of the Chiefs.
Now they trail them by five in the standings. They could be firing a coordinator in the next week, while Kansas City is headed to Seattle for “Sunday Night Football” with an unbeaten record.
The Chiefs are the exception. The league pushes turnover, parity and churn. Kansas City keeps beating the odds.
Sunday also brought a reminder that the old feeling in Kansas City had gotten too ordinary. Mahomes said as much.
Winning had started to feel less like celebration and more like routine. He wasn’t alone in that view.
Rashee Rice said the Chiefs had come to expect victories. Travis Kelce said he has wanted to make sure he - and everyone else in the locker room - enjoys these moments.
Mahomes, though, is the center of it all. And after 10 months of rehab, he has had no choice but to focus on the next day, not the next title.
“We played in so many Super Bowls, (where) especially in those last few (seasons), it’s like we - I don’t want to say coasted, but we didn’t play our best football in the regular season, and we just turned it on in the playoffs,” Mahomes said. “Even last year, when stuff wasn’t going right, it’s like, ‘We’re going to figure it out. It’s just going to happen.’”
That mindset has changed. He says he’s not thinking about the Super Bowl.
He’s thinking about getting through the work in front of him. The rehab is still ongoing, and the sense of urgency is different now.
The Chiefs did not play a clean game Sunday. Mahomes threw a bad interception that cost them three points, at least in theory - and only if you assume a field goal from a team that missed two kicks. A punt return fumble hurt them, and two drives that reached the 2-yard line came away empty.
Still, there was plenty that looked sharp. Kansas City averaged 7.4 yards per play, better than all but one game it played a year ago. The offense kept producing despite two wide receivers being out, and despite the limited circumstances around Mahomes.
He completed 23 of 30 passes with a receiving group that included two players who had never caught an NFL pass, another signed off the street just last week, another with five career catches in 20 games, and a star tight end working through a tweaked ankle.
It was enough to test a quarterback. It was enough to make him want better days.
But this, in its own way, was one of them. After everything that came before it, these are the better days.
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Kelce reached 1,100 career regular-season receptions during the Chiefs victory over the Chargers, another reminder of how long he has been at the heart of this run. For Kansas City, it is the kind of accomplishment that lands somewhere between routine and remarkable: another Sunday, another chapter for a player whose rsum already looks unlike anyone elses in team history. [Read more 🡒]
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The latest benchmark also brings Brady into the picture again, because Mahomes reached 100 NFL wins in the fewest starts ever recorded among quarterbacks. For a Chiefs team that is unbeaten and headed next to Seattle, the accomplishment is another sign that the standard in Kansas City is being measured not just by wins, but by how often Mahomes keeps finding himself in company reserved for the very best. [Read more 🡒]