All eyes in Kansas City are going to be on Patrick Mahomes’ left ankle this week after the Chiefs quarterback was forced out of Sunday’s 21-7 win over the Cleveland Browns with an ankle injury following a brutal hit.
With roughly eight minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, Mahomes tried to convert a fourth-and-3 by throwing a short pass, and as he was throwing the ball, he got sandwiched by two Browns defenders. Not only was Mahomes slow to get up, but he could barely walk as he headed off the field.
After the failed fourth down, the Chiefs forced a quick punt, but when Kansas City’s offense return to the field, Carson Wentz was at quarterback instead of Mahomes.
The Chiefs announced that Mahomes suffered an ankle injury and that he would be questionable to return, but he never reentered.
According to CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones, Mahomes has a high ankle sprain and is considered week to week. The only good news the Chiefs got is that Mahomes didn’t break his ankle.
“It’s not broken, it’s sore,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said following the game.
Mahomes said if the game had been closer that he would have lobbied to go back in.
“I wanted to to go back out there and I probably would have fought a little bit harder if the game had been one score,” Mahomes said after the game.
At this point, it’s not yet clear if Mahomes will miss any time with Reid only saying that his QB was now “day to day.”
“It’ll literally be day to day,” Reid said, via The Athletic. “He probably could’ve gone back in. He wanted to go back in. There was no need for that.”
The Chiefs have to turn around and play on Saturday this week against the Houston Texans, and right now, Mahomes just isn’t sure if he’ll be able to play.
“It’s hard to say right now,” Mahomes said of his status for Week 16, via ESPN. “You still [have the] adrenaline rolling and usually it’s kind of the day after when you kind of get a good sense of it.”
The injury definitely comes at an inopportune time for the Chiefs, who just started a span of playing three games in 10 days. In the days leading up to the Browns game, Mahomes had actually complained about the fact that the NFL was forcing his team to play three games between Dec. 15 and Dec. 25.
“You never want to play this many games in this short of time,” Mahomes said. “It’s just not great for your body. But at the end of the day, it’s your job, your profession. You have to come to work and do it.”
With the way the schedule is set up, Mahomes isn’t going to have much time to heal. Not only will the Chiefs’ be on a short week with the Saturday game against Houston coming up in Week 16, but they also have to turn around and play four days after that with a Wednesday game on Christmas against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Even if Mahomes plays in both of those games, he could be hobbled, but if he has to miss any time, that would be a huge problem for a Chiefs team that’s trying to clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC.