Patrick Mahomes expects 17-game season will take toll on him and Chiefs teammates
To NFL fans, the league’s decision to increase the regular-season schedule means there will be one more game. But for players, it’s a 6.25% increase in playing time.
Football is already known for its physicality, and there are lengthy injury reports after every week of the NFL season.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he knows he and his Chiefs teammates will have to adapt.
“Obviously it’ll be different and it’ll be something that we’ll have to adjust to,” Mahomes said Thursday during an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi. “But it’s something that we had talked about in the collective bargaining agreement.
“Whatever your beliefs are or not, you’ve got to go out there and adjust, and do whatever you can to be the best football player you can be every single day. I’ll be trying to figure out ways to take care of my body more and more, so you can adjust your body for a 17-game regular season.”
Sozzi noted that Mahomes’ offseason workouts are well-known and he asked about specific changes that will need to be made ahead of the 2021 season.
Mahomes noted a few things.
“It continues in that health and wellness part,” Mahomes said. “You’ll have to be able to change your diet a little bit more, you’ll have to change how you train, you’ll have to change your day-to-day work ethic and work involvement, how much you’re going to put on your body every single day. Because you want to be in that Super Bowl again, you want to be playing for a championship and you want to make sure your body can take the workload of that.
“And adding another game is adding more to your body. So you have to make sure that you’ve prepared your body in the best way possible to be ready for that.”
The NFL is removing a preseason game, but Mahomes was asked if the extra regular-season contest would take a toll.
Mahomes said every player is affected in each game, whether they show up on an injury report or not.
“It definitely puts more on your body. I mean, every single game your entire career, you’re battling through something,” said Mahomes who had surgery for a turf-toe injury after the season. “And I think you see that in every single body at the end of the season. You’re always nicked up a little bit, you always have some injuries and some bruises.
“And so I think the biggest thing is gonna be a learning experience this next year. I mean, we’ve got to go in with the mind-set of just continue to make ourselves better, and knowing 17 games is how many were playing, and then you’re gonna have the postseason after that. And so I think it’ll be brand new to everybody. Everybody’s want to adjust and try to do whatever they can to prepare their bodies to be ready for it.”
You can watch the entire interview here.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 12:33 PM.
