The 2025 season was one to forget for Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. There's no debating that it was a rough year for Mahomes and the rest of the team, as they finished with just six wins and missed the playoffs for the first time in his career.
To make matters worse, Mahomes missed the final three games due to a season-ending injury. The season was already off the rails by the time that injury happened but the injury really put the cherry on top of a craptactular season in Kansas City.
Nick Shook of NFL.com ranked all 63 starting quarterbacks from the 2025 season, breaking the quarterbacks into tiers. He ultimately stuck Mahomes in Tier 2 and slotted him in at 13th overall.
"Patrick Mahomes tried his best, but even he couldn't save the Chiefs from their demise in 2025. The devil was in the details for much of the season, and when the margin for error shrunk late, Mahomes' struggles increased, as evidenced by the 5-7 TD-INT ratio he posted from the start of November through his unfortunate season-ending ACL injury in Week 15."
Patrick Mahomes tabbed as Tier 2 QB following 2025 season
I get what Shook was trying to say here but the Chiefs were only as competitive as they were this past season because of Mahomes. If any other quarterback was trying to help this offense, one that didn't have much reliable help at wide receiver and was filled with injuries on the o-line, chances are they wouldn't have come close to the numbers Mahomes put up.
For those who are are wondering, the 12 quarterbacks ranked above Mahomes are Matthew Stafford, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, Drake Maye, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence (that's Tier 1), Sam Darnold, Caleb Williams, Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson. Some of those names make sense, others... eh, not so much.
As for where the other Chiefs quarterbacks ended up, both were in the worst tier. We didn't get to see much from Gardner Minshew before he suffered an injury so that's why he was ranked that low. Chris Oladokun, however, still ended up in the worst tier but did earn some praise from Shook.
"Chris Oladokun proved to be a gamer when taking over for both Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew, and he deserved credit for maintaining some sense of competitiveness in the Chiefs' final few weeks. Unfortunately, his Week 18 showing (two fumbles lost) in a loss to the lowly Raiders also dealt a devastating blow to his prospects of securing a backup job in Kansas City in 2026."
As soon as Mahomes went down, Chiefs fans weren't expecting anymore wins on the year and they were correct in assuming that. Oladokun wasn't awful but this Chiefs roster just wasn't strong enough to help this team win without a superstar quarterback at the helm. And, as we saw, even when Mahomes was healthy, the team still had too many issues to overcome.