In Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes’ second game back from a kneecap dislocation injury, nothing came easy.
Mahomes put up his lowest career single-game passing yardage as a professional but also set a new career-high for rushing yards in a single game. Following the game, one of the big questions is whether Mahomes’ health had an impact on the lack of offensive success. Andy Reid didn’t seem to think that his recent injuries were hampering him in any way.
“Yeah, listen, he’s been, I think he’s feeling better, physically feeling better,” Reid said of Mahomes. “He’s been kind of battling through the injury and I think starting kind of mid-week, I mean, he was going, ‘Man, I’m feeling better here,’ and I think that sure paid off.”
Mahomes said earlier in the week that it was the healthiest he’d felt since Week 1. Reid felt he started to really hit his stride by the middle of this practice week. Unfortunately, that didn’t exactly carry over into the game for the offense.
During the game, however, there was some concern that Mahomes might have tweaked his knee during one of his five carries. Luckily for the Chiefs and Mahomes, that didn’t happen.
“No, I didn’t tweak my knee,” Mahomes said. “I got hit in my knee for the first time. And so I think it was kind of out of, I was, like, kind of sitting there, like, ‘Man, that’s the first time I’ve taken a shot there.’ So I kind of just felt it and it felt fine and I got back up and kept going.”
Mahomes is still learning to trust his knee in his return from a fluky injury. Getting hit on his knee for the first time was a little jarring for Mahomes and it took him a second to get his bearings. He had to make sure that the knee was alright before getting up and moving on to the next play.
This won’t be the last time that he gets hit in that knee, but hopefully, he now has some newfound confidence in its ability to handle the rigors of playing through a physical game. It was one that required him to pick up some yards on the ground and there could be more of those down the line for Kansas City.
