The 2025 season didn't go according to plan for the Kansas City Chiefs. Not only did the team fail to win the division and qualify for the playoffs, both firsts in the Patrick Mahomes era, but they finished with a losing record for the first time since 2012.
Mahomes also was injured at the end of the season, putting the beginning of his 2026 season in jeopardy. Even with everything that didn't go his or the Chiefs' way in 2025 and the injury concern, Mina Kimes still has Mahomes' back, picking him number one in her annual quarterback draft that she does on her podcast.
"If you consider context, there's a very strong case for not putting him at number one because of the context that he's entering into this season, because he is coming off of an injury... I'm sticking with Patty Mahomes at number one.
"Part of the reason why is okay, so I thought to myself, okay, who would really unseat him. And as much as I am, you know, a huge fan of both Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen... They're not coming off of the best years themselves, right?" Kimes said on her podcast, The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny. "If we were coming off of last year's Allen and Lamar seasons, instead of the ones we just had, I actually, I would have put one of them, if not both above, but when I kind of took a step back and looked at all three of these quarterback seasons, it felt to me like they didn't make enough of a case last year to unseat the King.
Kimes also takes into account the state of the offensive unit as a whole, which, in the Chiefs' case in 2025, was rather miserable.
"The other thing I'll notice on note is that, despite the fact that Mahomes was highly imperfect and also playing in a pretty awful offense, and we can talk about that, he was still top 10 in most metrics, which is kind of crazy, right? Like he was six in QBR, ninth in EPA, eighth in success rate. He was first in QBR when pressured, his receiving group was 30th, and catch rate over expectation 29th and drop rate. We all know how bad the Chiefs' offense was."
Kimes said it better than most Chiefs fans probably could. Despite the well-documented offensive struggles, Mahomes continued to show why he's the G.O.A.T. The rest of the offense was bad, but Mahomes was the only reason they even looked decent when he was playing. That was pretty clear as day when he went down and missed the final three games, as the offense couldn't do much of anything without him.
Kimes' point about Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson not having good enough years to leapfrog Mahomes also makes sense. In 2024, both of those guys were in the MVP conversations, with Allen taking the award, but 2025 was a step back for everyone. Allen's Bills failed to win their division for the first time since 2019 an,d Jackson's Ravens didn't make the postseason.
No one would really blame Kimes if she opted to stray away from her trend of taking Mahomes first overall because of everything she said. He is coming off a major injury, and the Chiefs are coming off their first losing season of his career. Even still, he's proven that he's worth betting on, and Kimes is all-in. That's why we love her!
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