Mahomes' elbow scare puts Chiefs on edge after win over Jets

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes underwent an MRI on his elbow after Sunday’s 35-12 win over the Jets. The tests showed no major injury, as Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported.

Mahomes is listed as questionable for Week 10 at Atlanta, according to CBS Sports’ injury report. He came up grimacing and favoring his arm after a sack during the Week 9 game, and the team sent him for imaging once the win was secure.

The scare is why searches spiked. Mahomes is a three-time Super Bowl MVP and the player the Chiefs’ entire offense runs through, and Kansas City is 6-2 and chasing the 7-2 Denver Broncos in the AFC West. Any injury to his elbow, even one an MRI clears, is enough to reshape how the franchise plans its week.

The Chiefs beat the Jets 35-12 at Arrowhead Stadium to snap a two-game skid, as ESPN’s schedule shows. Kenneth Walker III ran for two touchdowns and Travis Kelce caught a fourth-and-goal score, and the 35-point output was Kansas City’s highest since a 33-30 overtime win over Indianapolis in Week 2, as CBS Sports’ game coverage showed. The win came after a 20-3 loss at Seattle and a 28-24 loss at Denver, the first time all season the Chiefs had dropped consecutive games.

Mahomes has thrown for 2,037 yards and 14 touchdowns through eight games, with a QBR of 62.9, per ESPN. The numbers are below his MVP pace, and the passing game has drawn scrutiny even when the team wins. Kelce has 482 receiving yards and two scores. Walker, acquired to anchor the ground game, has 872 rushing yards and seven touchdowns.

The Chiefs have won three Super Bowls and played in four title games since Mahomes became the starter in 2018. No quarterback in the salary-cap era has matched that run, and the franchise has built its roster around the assumption that he will be available every January. The defense has been rebuilt, the running game retooled, the receiving corps turned over. Mahomes is the one constant. That assumption has held for most of his career. It has wobbled this fall.

Denver is 7-2 and a game ahead of Kansas City in the AFC West, per ESPN’s standings. The Chiefs beat the Broncos 31-10 in the opener but lost the rematch 28-24 in Week 8, splitting the season series. The division could come down to tiebreakers, and every game Mahomes starts or misses shifts that math.

The depth chart behind Mahomes is thin. Justin Fields, the former first-round pick who started 38 games for Chicago and Pittsburgh, is the backup, according to ESPN’s depth chart. Fields was the 11th overall pick in 2021 and has built his career on his legs, not his arm. Rookie Garrett Nussmeier, a seventh-round pick out of LSU, was inactive against the Jets and listed as the emergency third quarterback. If Mahomes misses time, Fields would run an offense built around a quarterback whose strengths are nothing like his own.

Mahomes’ injury history is why a clean MRI still leads the news. In 2019 he dislocated his kneecap on a quarterback sneak against Denver and missed two games, an injury that looked far worse on replay than it turned out to be. He played through a high ankle sprain in the January 2023 divisional playoff win over Jacksonville and reinjured it in Super Bowl LVII against Philadelphia, a game the Chiefs won. He has never missed a full season, but he has never gone a full season without a moment that stops the league.

The defense has carried the team during the passing-game dip. Kansas City ranks third in the league in points allowed at 17.9 per game, per ESPN’s team statistics. Cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, on injured reserve since October with a knee injury, is expected to return for Week 10. The defense has kept the Chiefs in games even when Mahomes has not been at his best.

Not everything around Mahomes is stable. Head coach Andy Reid declined to commit to kicker Harrison Butker’s future after another missed field goal drew boos at Arrowhead, as ESPN reported. Butker has been one of the league’s most reliable kickers for a decade, and his struggles add uncertainty to a team that already plays in more one-score games than its roster suggests.

The Week 10 trip to Atlanta comes against a 3-6 Falcons team, per CBS Sports, the kind of matchup a team can survive without its starter. Then the schedule hardens: home for Arizona, at Buffalo on Thanksgiving night, at the Rams on a Thursday in December. If Mahomes’ elbow costs him a game or two, the Chiefs need it to be now, not late November.

What I think

The MRI was the story, and the MRI was clean. That is the best news the Chiefs have had all season.

Mahomes will probably play in Atlanta. The elbow is sore, the imaging is clear, and he has played through worse. He has made a career of answering injury scares by starting the next week and winning.

But “probably” is doing a lot of work for a franchise whose backup is Justin Fields running an offense designed for a different quarterback. Fields can extend plays with his legs. He cannot run Andy Reid’s system the way Mahomes does. The drop-off from starter to backup is steep enough to change how the Chiefs call every play.

The Chiefs are 6-2 and chasing Denver with the trade deadline arriving Tuesday. If Mahomes is healthy, Kansas City is a contender. If he is not, the Broncos own the division and the Chiefs are fighting for a wild card with a backup quarterback and a kicker the home crowd has started to boo. The elbow is fine. The margin is not.