Chiefs' QB Patrick Mahomes out for ACL Injury and Surgery — Here's When He'll Be Back

When Patrick Mahomes went down in December 2025, there was a collective holding of breath as coaches, teammates, and fans worried about what it would mean for the future of the beloved quarterback.

As it turns out, he sustained one of those nightmare injuries: a torn ACL.

Which means that he sat out the rest of Winter and Spring training, and left people wondering: when will he be back? Luckily, things seem to be going well for the 30-year-old star player.

Here's what we know about his return timeline.

According to the Mayo Clinic, an ACL tear is an injury "to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) — one of the strong bands of tissue that help connect your thigh bone (femur) to your shinbone (tibia)."

While it can come in varying degrees of severity, more severe ACL injuries and tears can be career-ending.

Luckily for Patrick, he seems to have not only sustained a less severe type of ACL injury, but he's healing ahead of schedule. In December 2025, during a Week 15 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, Patrick went down hard, and fans feared the worst.

But surgeons got him into an operating room the next day, and their quick action seems to have saved his career (per Heavy).

So, when is he returning?

NFL insider Jay Glazer weighed in on the topic on the Dan Patrick Show, saying, "Patrick’s different. He went down and immediately got the surgery. Got the surgery the next day, which normally they don’t do because you want the swelling to [go down]. He got it before it really swelled up. That was on a Tuesday. I believe it was either Thursday or Friday of that week, he was already in the Chiefs’ training room doing rehab. He already had gotten his knee bending 90 degrees at that point."

Glazer added, "He’s just different. He heals differently. His pain threshold’s different. His work effort’s different. At first they were [talking about returning] the start of the season. I would hedge on him being [back] sooner than that, by far.”

If Patrick returns at the start of the 2026 season, he'll be in good company. Another Chiefs player is returning, and this one was rumored to be considering retirement: Travis Kelce.

On March 9, 2026, reports about Travis seemingly confirmed that he'd be returning for at least one more season amid retirement rumors. While Travis himself hasn't spoken about it, Patrick seemed to confirm it as well in an Instagram post where he shared a photo of himself with Travis and captioned it with a clock emoji and a bow and arrow emoji in reference to the Chiefs and Arrowhead Stadium

Travis is famously engaged to pop superstar Taylor Swift, and it's rumored that the two will tie the knot during the off-season in 2026, giving him some time to enjoy wedded bliss before he hits the gridiron again.

With any luck, Patrick will be joining him.