Patrick Mahomes spent most of the 2025 NFL season playing some of the best football of his career. Then came Week 15, a loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, and a torn ACL and LCL in his left knee that ended his season and snapped Kansas City’s 10-year playoff streak in the same moment.
The procedure to repair both ligaments was performed in mid-December and went well, leaving Mahomes and the Chiefs cautiously optimistic about a return to full health in time for the 2026 season opener. Rehab began almost immediately. The timeline is aggressive but achievable if everything goes according to plan.
A season cut too short
Before the injury, Mahomes had been having a quietly remarkable year. He had set career highs in rushing, totaling 422 yards and five touchdowns on the ground, while throwing for 3,587 yards with 22 passing touchdowns and 11 interceptions across 14 games. It was the kind of season that tends to get remembered differently when it ends without a playoff run, and for Kansas City, the absence from the postseason was jarring after a decade of near-constant contention.
The Chiefs finished 6 and 11, the worst record of the Mahomes era. That record alone would have made for a challenging offseason. The news that followed made it more complicated.
Hollywood Brown heads to Philadelphia
Wide receiver Marquise Brown, known around the league as Hollywood, agreed to a one-year deal worth $10 million with the Philadelphia Eagles this week. The agreement signals the end of a productive but brief run with Kansas City, where Brown emerged as one of Mahomes’ more dependable targets in 2025.
Brown finished the season with 49 catches for 587 yards and five touchdowns. He ranked second on the team in receiving yards, trailing only tight end Travis Kelce, and provided Mahomes with a genuine perimeter threat capable of stressing defenses with speed and precise route-running. In a year when Kelce’s production dipped and the overall offense sputtered at times, Brown was one of the more consistent bright spots.
What his absence means
Losing Brown is not a minor inconvenience. It is a significant subtraction from a receiving corps that already lacked depth, and it comes at a moment when the organization cannot afford to have Mahomes return to a roster that has thinned around him.
The burden of picking up the slack falls largely on Rashee Rice, who is still working to reestablish himself as a featured option, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, whose durability and role heading into 2026 remain questions. Kansas City will also look to free agency and the draft to fill the void, though identifying a replacement with Brown’s combination of speed and reliability will not be easy.
The bigger picture
Everything in Kansas City ultimately circles back to Mahomes. His health is the organization’s central concern, and the medical team’s optimism about his recovery timeline is the most important piece of news the franchise has received this offseason. But the team he rejoins will look meaningfully different from the one that surrounded him when he went down.
The Chiefs have rebuilding to do, both in terms of roster construction and in terms of reestablishing the culture of winning that defined their decade of dominance. Mahomes has always made that kind of reset easier than it would be for almost any other team. He will need every advantage he can get when he steps back onto the field.
