The Mahomes injury is an abrupt ending. This Chiefs season was a slow demise
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mahomes suffered a torn ACL, requiring surgery and ending his season
- Chiefs lost key game and playoff hopes, marking abrupt end to title defense
- Season decline traced to early losses and late collapses despite prior success
The most accomplished quarterback of the present day made his way down a tunnel to the locker room, his game over, his season done and one of the most remarkable streaks in NFL history finished.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes walked with a towel over his head as he hung his arms over the shoulders of two people he needed for support to walk. If part of that image sounds vaguely similar to a week earlier, a towel hiding his face in the postgame locker room, you should take note of the startling difference.
The finality is now official.
And far more painful than imagined.
The Chiefs lost a football game, the last of their dwindling playoff hopes and their quarterback, all in the matter of minutes Sunday during a 16-13 defeat against the Chargers at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
In its aftermath, a Chiefs offseason already jam-packed full of questions just added its most consequential: When will we see Patrick Mahomes throw a pass again?
The Chiefs confirmed late Sunday that Mahomes has a torn ACL in his left knee, an injury that will require surgery and several months of rehab. Is the start of 2026 in doubt? Longer?
Oh, and one more question in the aftermath of it all, if I may: How in the you-know-what did the Chiefs just miss the playoffs when that guy was on the field for 14 games?
The Mahomes injury is an abrupt and jarring conclusion to a once-promising season that had him leading the league’s MVP race with the schedule more than half exhausted.
The Chiefs? This season was a slow demise.
That they’ll be without a playoff spot is a reminder of how hard it is to accomplish all they’ve achieved over the past seven seasons — the three Super Bowls, the five AFC titles, the seven straight appearances in the AFC Championship Game.
This will be the first Patrick Mahomes season as a starting quarterback that ends shy of an AFC Championship Game’s overtime period. It’s incredible, really. Any organization, in any sport, should be so lucky.
But even if this team wasn’t going to extend that streak, it shouldn’t either be the one causing us to reminisce about the old days as though they are things of the past.
This team is far too talented, far too experienced and far too invested in the immediate payout for this result. If anything, the Chiefs’ offseason moves prioritized this year above future seasons.
Yet 2025 will provide the evidence of different sort: just how hard it is to miss the playoffs with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.
It took a lot to get here.
It is not demanding perfection to suggest the Chiefs shouldn’t be afforded an off-year with Mahomes. It is accepting reality. When you have the best in the business playing the most important position in the business, the bare minimum is to at least get the rest of it right enough that Kansas City remembers January not for its bitter cold, but for the homefield advantage it provides.
Because saying the Mahomes-led Chiefs just once missed the playoffs oversimplifies that this is already an eight-part series, every episode borrowing from the same plot. The franchise that had played in more high-pressure football games than any other over the last seven seasons spent an entire year overwhelmed by big moments.
The Chiefs are 6-8, and in each of their losses — every last one of them — they either led in the fourth quarter or possessed the football with a chance to take or take the lead in the fourth quarter. They have trailed in the second half in nine games. They are 1-8 in those games. They are 1-7 in one-score games.
A year ago, the Chiefs inflated their record with complimentary football — offense, defense or even special teams would show up at just the right time. It only took one.
This year, it was closer to complimentary collapses — offense, defense or the special teams failures would show up at just the wrong time. It only took one. The opening night in Brazil provided the ominous but apparently foretelling moment, when one star player left his passing lane on a game-deciding third down.
Little did we know, it was the beginning of the end.
Three days ago, Chiefs safety Bryan Cook commented that the true measurement of a team is how it responds when it gets knocked down. He’s not wrong. That’s why this season will be short.
Well, there are a lot of reasons, really. And that’s the point: So much had to go wrong for this season to go very wrong.
There was an effort problem in Brazil, a pick-6 problem in Jacksonville, a three-and-out problem in Denver, a penalty problem in Dallas, a drops problem in Kansas City, an interception problem on the extended stay in KC and a running game problem in every city they visited.
The Chiefs spent a full season flirting with danger, as though oblivious to its consequences, as though the results would change even absent substantive improvement, and now those consequences have smacked them in the face.
Mahomes left the game in the final two minutes Sunday, the Chiefs with one last gasp to keep their season alive. Gardner Minshew took over and threw one of the most inexplicable interceptions you’ll see, only after one of the most inexplicable delay-of-game penalties you’ll see.
Except that, well, Mahomes had already topped it while he was on the field.
With 13 minutes left, the Chiefs trailed by just three, ball in the red zone. It was the position in which they’ve found themselves so frequently this season: a chance to win the fourth quarter and, in turn, win the game.
Man, how that feeling has changed. Mahomes had eight game-winning drives in 2024. Only a late 56-yard field goal in Seattle prevents me from saying that 44-year-old Philip Rivers had as many fourth-quarter comebacks this year as the Chiefs.
Mahomes dropped back and threw a contested pass to running back Kareem Hunt, a player who has made one contested catch in the last three years combined. He was never open.
A week ago, same spot, future Hall of Fame tight end Travis Kelce was open, and Mahomes hit him in the hands, only for the pass to ricochet into the air for another interception. That happened three times this season, and two of them zapped the Chiefs’ chances to win a game.
The drops cost them another game. The penalties, too. Their inability to get off the field on third-and-long.
The list gets tiring.
But the exhaustion is the requirement for the NFL playoffs to leave the Chiefs at home.
The Chiefs are plenty good enough to survive flaws. But how does the city that employs Patrick Mahomes miss the postseason altogether? It takes for granted that it’s possible to miss it.
“Success is rented every year,” Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones said. “Just because last year’s team made the Super Bowl, that doesn’t guarantee success.”
The message rings true.
It’s not remotely how this team navigated the season.
There is but nothing guaranteed in this league, and the Chiefs’ 0-2 start should’ve been enough to provide them that lesson. That could’ve been the silver lining of their rough start.
Instead, the lesson comes from that final image, Mahomes limping with assistance down the tunnel, his back to the field as the Chiefs’ season is relegated to three meaningless football games.
The other images — those illuminating the chances they blew with Mahomes on the field — those are the ones that will endure.
Kansas City is familiar enough with its history to know this kind of run wouldn’t last forever.
But the painful part? This run shouldn’t yet be history.
This story was originally published December 15, 2025 at 5:30 AM.