Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL and LCL with less than two minutes left in a December game against the Chargers. He asked the medical staff if he could tape it up and finish. They said no. The Chiefs lost, and for the first time in a decade, Kansas City missed the playoffs entirely.
But five weeks into recovery, Mahomes is tracking toward something that looked impossible in those final seconds: being ready to play when the 2026 season starts.
"Rehab is going great," he said in a video conference on January 15, four days after undergoing surgery. "I'm hitting all the checkpoints that the doctor wants." He's been working through the process in Kansas City with the Chiefs' athletic trainer Julie Frymyer, who's been pushing him toward the milestones his surgeon set. The strength is returning. The range of motion is coming back.
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Start Your News DetoxMahomes is clear-eyed about the uncertainty. "Doctor said I could be [ready for Week 1], but can't predict what's going to happen throughout the process," he said. There's a difference between what's theoretically possible and what actually unfolds over months of rehab. He knows that. But he also knows what he's aiming for: playing without restrictions when the season kicks off.
What's striking about his update isn't the optimism — it's the honesty about what's hard. "Take it a day at a time" sounds like a cliché until you're the person who usually tosses his kids around the living room and suddenly can't. The recovery has forced a different version of fatherhood, at least temporarily. His wife has helped keep him anchored to his family while his body does the slower work of healing.
The three-time Super Bowl champion has learned, like most people do after serious injury, that pushing hard and taking it slow aren't opposites — they're the same thing done right. "We have to let it all play out," he said. For someone used to controlling the game from the pocket, that's probably the hardest part.
If Mahomes does return for Week 1, it will mark one of the faster recoveries from an ACL tear in NFL history. But for now, there's no timeline certainty — just a goal, a plan, and the daily work of getting there.
