The Kansas City Chiefs face any number of questions in what is undoubtedly the most pivotal offseason in nearly a decade, but one is more pressing than any other: When will Patrick Mahomes be able to play again?
Mahomes went down with a major knee injury with two minutes left to play in the fourth quarter of the Chiefs' season-ending loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday. Mahomes was helped off the field, and was carried along by training staff with a towel on his head to the team's locker room after the game.
Following Week 15, the Chiefs announced that Mahomes had suffered a torn ACL, with reports thereafter also confirming an LCL injury as well. Mahomes had surgery 24 hours later in Dallas, Texas, which allowed him to turn the corner toward rehabilitation.
Rick Burkholder, the Chiefs' VP of Sports Medicine and Performance, spoke about Patrick Mahomes' knee injury and what to expect going forward.
As the Chiefs prepare to play the first of three meaningless games to close the 2025 season, they also held their first official media session following Mahomes' surgery. That's why the team made Rick Burkholder, their Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance, available to the media on Wednesday.
Burkholder offered up some clarity on the process and what to expect from Mahomes' injury before head coach Andy Reid and players followed suit like a normal mid-week media session.
"Immediately following the game, we came down here and did an MRI. That MRI revealed an ACL injury, anterior cruciate ligament, and a lateral collateral ligament injury. After that, our doctors, Patrick, his family, and his agent consulted, and then we sought out a second opinion. And the family and agent and Patrick and everybody agreed that he would go to Dr. Cooper in Dallas.
"Dr. Cooper set up an appointment for him Monday morning, Monday afternoon, and then operated on him Monday night. The reason he wanted to operate on him quickly, where we usually wait on the ACL, is because the LCL we wanted to reattach the evulsion injury there. As Dr. Cooper told us after seeing the MRI, everything he had in this injury was fixable, correctable, and it was fixed on Monday night by Dr. Cooper."
Burkholder also gave indications that the rest of the knee was clean, which allowed Mahomes to shift attention toward the healing process so quickly.
"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 also went on to say that the recovery timetable for this injury is nine months, but that there's variance by a month or two with all things involved. Any signfiicant injury is going to come down to the individual involved and a number of complicating factors that will benefit or impede a player's progress.
Fortunately, Mahomes has access to world-class rehabilitation efforts and, as Travis Kelce said in his own repsonse to the injury on his podcast New Heights, the quarterback himself is a "warrior" who will attack his comeback in the same way he's pursued greatness on the field. Burkholder agreed, "As you know with Patrick in the past with his injuries, he attacks them and he's in that mode right now"