We’ve reached the point in the NFL offseason when folks are seeing the start of training camp on the horizon and, for the Kansas City Chiefs, that means getting a feel for whether quarterback Patrick Mahomes will be practicing with the club when workouts begin in St. Joseph, Missouri.
The short answer is yes. The reason is that Mahomes is seemingly obsessive about his rehabilitation to the point he is joined at the hip with a trainer. Even when he goes home.
Mahomes, rehabilitating from surgery to repair the torn ACL and LCL he suffered last December, is “way ahead of schedule,” in that process, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said this week on a Sirius NFL radio interview.
The rehabilitation process has reached the point that Veach believes the Chiefs will have to rein in Mahomes from doing everything immediately once training camp opens. And how is this possible?
Mahomes is a rehab machine. He began the process exactly one day after his surgery in mid-December. And he has not stopped since.
“I will say this, I think it wouldn’t surprise you guys, the way it’s been really inspiring to just see,” Veach said. “I mean, in my mind, I’ve been there before with Pat. He had that dislocated knee [in 2019] and worked his tail off, and came back in three weeks. And I knew this bump in the road wouldn’t slow him down at all.
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“But, I mean, this guy has been in the building — especially for, like, a player who has accomplished everything, can do anything he wants, he can hire his own trainers, he can be wherever he wants. He’s in our building every single day. And even when he goes away for a few days, say to Dallas for a weekend with his family, he takes one of our trainers with him.”
So, Mahomes sometimes takes weekends off with the family in his hometown. But he doesn’t take days off from his rehabilitation regimen, to the point a team trainer travels with him.
And it should be noted that other NFL players have been known to take trainers home with them. But that usually happens during the season when a player is trying to rally to be able to play a game in a few days.
It doesn’t typically happen over the span of months and months after a near-total knee reconstruction. And it doesn’t happen when going home means flying to another state for several days.
And, yet, that’s what Mahomes is doing. And it is apparently paying off.
“Needless to say, he’s way ahead of schedule,” Veach said. “I think the biggest challenge we’re going to have is protecting him against himself, because I’m sure when we get to St. Joe for training camp, he’s going to want to be full go.
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“But we’re going to have to hold him back a little. And, again, I don’t want to put a timetable on it. But I think you guys know the kind of person and competitor Pat is, and I would just say, we’re in a really good place right now.”
The Mahomes knee rehab has been on a lot of people’s minds lately — including the president of the United States.
Everyone wants to know if Mahomes will be ready to go for training camp. Trump wanted to know if he’s going to be ready for the start of the regular season.
Seeing as Mahomes is traveling with a team trainer on his day off, we’re closing in on the expectation the quarterback will indeed be ready for that opener.
