Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL in Week 15 last December, on the same afternoon Kansas City was eliminated from playoff contention in a loss to the Chargers. He had surgery, said he was targeting Week 1, and then actually made it. The Chiefs are 3-0.
On Sunday he takes that 3-0 team into Allegiant Stadium against a 3-0 Raiders team. Las Vegas says it is the first time these two have met in the regular season with both sitting at 3-0 or better. The real question underneath the matchup is how much of the old Mahomes came back.
The Numbers Say Most Of Him Did
Through three games Mahomes has thrown for 812 yards and seven touchdowns while completing 68.4 percent of his passes. Week 3 against Miami was the cleanest evidence: 20 of 24 for 246 yards and two scores, including a perfect 14-for-14 on play-action, in a 24-10 win. He was not sacked once.
Seven touchdowns in three games from a quarterback less than a year removed from ACL surgery is not a cautious return. Andy Reid has leaned hard on play-action and a working run game, and Mahomes said himself that the running game has opened things up for the offense. That is a scheme protecting a knee without hiding the player attached to it.
What is missing from the public record is the part that would settle the argument. Nobody has published his scrambling volume or his off-platform throwing rate measured against his pre-injury baseline, and that is exactly where ACL recoveries tend to show up. Three games against this schedule is not enough to close the case either way.
Crosby Had His Own Strange Year
Maxx Crosby is still a Raider, which was not a given. Baltimore came close to trading for him in March before backing out, leaving him in the AFC West and facing Mahomes twice a season again.
Crosby texted Mahomes as soon as Mahomes was cleared to play. “We’re both back,” is how Mahomes described the message. Mahomes said he answered, “Let’s show the world who we are.”
Asked about the matchup, Mahomes framed it as the appeal of the sport itself. “It’s just what the pure football is, is having the best competitors compete against each other,” he said.
Crosby’s production has been quiet by his own standard. He needs 5.5 more sacks to get to 7.0 for an eighth straight season, which would put him in a group of nine players since 1982 to open a career that way. He has 13 games to find them. He also has plenty of motive, given that Mahomes has thrown 36 career touchdowns against Las Vegas, more than against any other opponent.
Sunday Is The Actual Exam
Kansas City has beaten the teams in front of it. A 3-0 Raiders team with Crosby coming off the edge is a different test, particularly for a quarterback whose improvisation is the one area nobody can grade from a box score yet.
If Mahomes extends plays on Sunday, takes contact and keeps standing in there, the ACL conversation is finished. If he gets flushed and throws the ball away, the Chiefs will still win plenty of games, just in a flatter way. Either way, less than a year after surgery he is 3-0 and the one choosing the storyline, which is the outcome every other team in this situation would sign for.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.