Patrick Mahomes is done talking about the knee - or at least he’d like to be.
After nearly 12 minutes at his first media session since being officially named the Chiefs’ Week 1 starter, Mahomes was headed for the door Thursday when he let reporters know exactly where his patience stood.
“Hopefully,” he said, “I’m done with the questions about the leg.”
That’s the real test now. Not the rehab, not the clearance, not the calendar. Mahomes is four days from leading Kansas City onto the field for a game for the 148th time in his career, and the conversation has shifted from whether he’ll be out there to whether he’ll look like himself once he is.
He hasn’t played a game in nine months, and he sat out the preseason entirely. But Mahomes said Thursday that his own confidence didn’t come from a single medical milestone. It came from the daily grind of camp, where he didn’t miss a snap after reporting in late July and where the Chiefs logged more work than usual, according to Andy Reid.
Mahomes had been aiming for Week 1 from the moment he saw his MRI results last December. Still, two moments in camp told him he was ready, and neither involved a clean pocket or a perfect throw.
The first came five weeks ago during a two-minute drill. Mahomes scrambled on fourth down, then found himself chased down by Peter Woods, a 300-pound rookie defensive tackle. With Woods closing in, Mahomes planted on his healthy knee and then the surgically repaired one before cutting back in an attempt to escape.
When I’d asked him about that play a couple of days later, Mahomes said he knew then that he didn’t quite have the same “juice” yet. He felt fine, but he also thought, “Man, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Now, with five more weeks behind him, he sees that scramble differently.
“Looking back on it now, that was kind of the moment for me,” Mahomes said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m good. I can go out there and play if I need to play.’”
He pointed to another checkpoint from his past, too - the kind of play that stuck with him seven years ago when he returned from a dislocated kneecap and jumped to avoid a pass rush in Tennessee before connecting with Mecole Hardman on a 63-yard touchdown.
The second recent sign came late in camp. Mahomes was set to throw when he took a hit from behind, not a hard one and not an intentional one, after a linebacker drove a blocker into him. The reaction around him was immediate.
“Every coach was freaking out,” Mahomes said. “But I’m glad (because) someone hit me, and I didn’t just crumble.
“Stuff like that is good for me.”
That’s the bar now, because there hasn’t been much live football to answer the rest. Mahomes hasn’t faced a defense that wanted anything other than to protect him.
He hasn’t thrown in a live drill without the yellow no-contact jersey. And on Monday night against the Broncos, the opposition will be the opposite of accommodating - Denver led the AFC in quarterback pressure rate last year.
The Chiefs wouldn’t normally leave Mahomes out of preseason action if they didn’t believe there was value in getting him some game reps. That history matters. But this time, the team filled those boxes with camp work instead, and Mahomes believes that mattered more than any exhibition snap could have.
What he’s really been building toward is the mental side, the part that remained after the medical clearance arrived two days before training camp.
He is not promised anything when Kansas City hosts Denver on Monday night. But before the first snap, he says he already has what he needed most.
His belief is there.
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