Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes says he was personally affected by JuJu Smith-Schuster injury
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was happy his team beat the Jaguars 27-17 on Sunday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
But he was overjoyed about what he saw in the Chiefs locker room after the game.
It was wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who had been knocked out of the game following a helmet-to-helmet hit.
Speaking with Carrington Harrison for his weekly spot Monday on KCSP (610 AM), Mahomes also said he felt a bit of regret for what he saw as his small part in Smith-Schuster’s injury: the pass.
“It helped that we saw JuJu after the game, you got to see him and that he was moving around. Obviously, he has a lot of stuff to do as far as the (concussion) protocol and stuff like that,” Mahomes said. “It was good to see him with a smile on his face and everything like that, so we weren’t as worried. But obviously we don’t want that to happen.
“I take it upon myself, too, because I’m leading him by throwing him the ball into that hit. It was definitely a bad feeling for me as a quarterback. But I was glad to see he was doing better after the game.”
Mahomes was asked if it can be difficult to concentrate after seeing a teammate on the ground following a serious injury.
“Yeah, it’s extremely hard, man,” Mahomes said. “Because like you said, we’re playing football, this is a game, but at the same time you care about your brothers on the field. I’ve already built a close relationship with JuJu and you want to make sure that he’s all right. So you’re always asking the trainers and asking everybody on the sidelines how he’s doing and everything like that. Once they said that he was doing good, you could kind of lock back in (on the game).
“But anytime there’s any big injury like that or something like that that’s scary, you want to make sure those guys are good to go.”
While the Chiefs’ trainers were attending to Smith-Schuster on the field, Mahomes spoke with an official. There was no penalty on the play after officials picked up a flag.
Mahomes said player safety should always be taken into consideration.
“I’m usually a guy that says let ‘em play and go out there and let guys play, because as you said the defense is put in tough positions to try to make plays on the football (field),” Mahomes said. “But anytime there’s helmet to helmet, that’s the stuff that we want to try the best that we can to get out of football, because we want to protect guys, and I understand these defensive guys are trying to do their best to stay away from it.
“But at the same time you want to do whatever you can to get that stuff out of there because you don’t want anyone getting hurt at the end of the day.”
You can listen to the full interview here.
This story was originally published November 16, 2022 at 10:04 AM.
