On Sunday, the Chiefs Kingdom suffered their worst fear, a serious injury to their Super Star Quarterback, Patrick Mahomes that ended his 2025 season. Yet, a day later, he went under the knife and had his damaged knee repaired. Now there is talk he could be ready by the 2026 season opener next September.
Never doubt Patrick Mahomes, because if you do, you’d be making a big mistake. The Kansas City Chiefs’ starting quarterback had successful surgery to repair both his ACL and LCL on Monday Night. Just a day removed from the gruesome injury, Mahomes quickly gathered his medical team, his family, and his agent, and mapped out a plan to begin rehab post haste.
Kansas City Chiefs V.P. of Sports Medicine, Rick Burkholder, indicated that Mahomes began discussing treatment options an hour after the injury. After the initial MRI revealed the injuries, Mahomes flew to Dallas, Texas, to meet with renowned knee surgeon, Dr Dan Cooper.
It was shocking to most that Mahomes’ surgery took place so quickly, but Dr. Cooper felt it was best to repair the LCL promptly to shorten recovery time for the ACL injury. By doing that, Mahomes began his rehab on Tuesday morning.
Burkholder spoke to the press today and provided further details about what happened after the game and the surgery that followed.
“The reason he (Dr. Cooper) wanted to operate on him quickly where we usually wait on the ACL’s is because the LCL we wanted to reattach the avulsion injury there. As Dr. Cooper told us after seeing the MRI and my doctor’s saw it, they said everything that he had in this injury was fixable – correctable and it was fixed on Monday night by Dr. Cooper. He had no artery damage, no nerve damage, no joint surface damage, no meniscal damage. He’s already started rehab down in Dallas, he was there first thing Tuesday morning, and he’ll do that through tomorrow and then he’ll be back here Friday, Burkholder stated.
If you watched the documentary about the Kansas City Chiefs, you saw that when Mahomes injured his ankle in the divisional round against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he played six days later in the AFC Championship game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Check out this Video Link from Harold Kuntz, Chiefs Blitz Podcast contributor and Fox 4 Sports reporter, who showed part of the Mahomes process when dealing with injuries.
“As you know, in the past with Patrick and his injuries, he attacks them and does very well and he’s in that mode right now. I’ve talked to him everyday and I know (Head) Coach (Andy Reid) has too and he’s already on it. He’ll return here Friday and for the majority of the rehab he will do it with my staff and in particular (Assistant Athletic Trainer) Julie Frymyer who’s done is dislocated patella, his toe injury and his ankle injuries,” Burkholder said about the next steps in the rehab.
On a practical point, the consensus is that this multi-ligament injury could take 12 months to heal. However, the 2026 season opener is less than nine months away, so knowing Mahomes, it’s been communicated that he expects to be ready for training camp.
That would push his rehab to less than eight months, and if he can defy the odds, put in the work, and push his body to the limits, that would be an incredible achievement and sacrifice.
Mahomes will be back in Kansas City on Friday to continue his rehab. The team placed him on injured reserve, and it’s now unknown if he will travel with his team to Tennessee on Saturday for their AFC game on Sunday afternoon.
