Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is officially on the mend.
Mahomes suffered injuries to both his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and LCL (lateral collateral ligament) late in Sunday’s Week 16 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Dallas-based orthopedic surgeon Daniel E. Cooper performed surgery on Mahomes on Monday evening and reported that the quarterback had no artery, nerve, joint or meniscal damage. Mahomes has already begun rehab in Dallas and is expected to return to Kansas City on Friday to continue his rehab under assistant athletic trainer Julie Frymyer.
Chiefs vice president of sports medicine and performance Rick Burkholder on Wednesday cautiously offered a timeline for Mahomes’ recovery.
“Every player is different, every sport’s different (and) every position is different,” Burkholder said. “With (Mahomes), traditionally, he’s going after it so hard and he’s so in tune with what he does that he does it a little quicker.
“(The) ballpark on this thing is nine months. Could be a month or two less, a month or two more — you never know what goes on, and everybody’s designed differently, biomechanically.
“So you just have to go through it. And then he’s got position-specific things that he needs to do. So right now, I’ll give you this — early on in the rehab phase, we’re doing a lot to get his muscles firing and get the swelling down, and he’s in a protective brace right now so that all that surgery heals in.”
Mahomes last missed extended time due to injury in 2019, when he dislocated his kneecap. He returned to play after two absences en route to the first of his three Super Bowl championships.
This story was originally published December 17, 2025 at 12:52 PM.
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