Quarterback Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs sustained a high ankle sprain last week against the Cleveland Browns and had to exit the game in favor of backup Carson Wentz. As of Friday, he was no longer on the injury report and he is scheduled to start on Saturday against the Houston Texans in Week 16.
Mahomes Will Start Against Houston Texans On Saturday
Chiefs quarterback Mahomes, who was sidelined last week against the Browns with a high ankle sprain, is no longer a blip on the injury report and will start Saturday’s game against the Texans.
Mahomes was a full participant in Wednesday and Thursday’s practices and was deemed fit to play by Chiefs’ coach Andy Reid.
“He did look good out there,” Reid said. “He moved around pretty good. So, you’re always looking to make sure they can get out the way, not to further any harm to them. So that’s what I look at.
“I’ve been through it with him before, and he amazed me every time he does it. The guy, he’s been so mentally tough and just puts it into a mindset that he has going into it [from] where he was a few days ago.”
The Chiefs and Mahomes will play three games in 11 days, a fact Mahomes is not happy with. He almost wanted to take the game off to get some rest for the playoffs and not push the ankle, but it has fully healed.
“It’s not a good feeling,” Mahomes said last week about the schedule. “You never want to play this amount of games in this short of time. It’s not great for your body. But, at the end of the day, it’s your job, your profession. You have to come to work and do it.”
Mahomes, who has led the Chiefs to the last two Super Bowl titles, said he has to adjust his workouts and his preparation to be ready for the three-game stretch.
“All you can do is focus on the game. The practice you have that day,” he added. “I try to prepare my body all year long for this stretch. That’s tailoring my workouts, tailoring how you practice and prepare, and the coaches do a great job of taking care of us on the practice field. We practice as hard as anybody, but they know how to dial it back when needed.”
Mahomes’ QB+ Performance this Season
Here at Pro Football Network, we have created our own Quarterback+ (QB+) metric, which weighs statistics we value highly and then uses them to evaluate a quarterback across the current season.
Our metric uses numbers that are fully available through 2019, so that’s where the historical context comes from. All data referenced is relative to either the current season or in comparison to stats dating back to 2000 for most or 2019 for pressure-related data.
Week 15 continued a run of underwhelming performances from Mahomes. So far on the year, he has an overall grade of B-.
He turned it on in a couple of key clutch moments — especially at the end of the first half last week — to wrestle the game into the Kansas City Chiefs’ control. However, he ranked in the bottom half of qualified starters in overall EPA (-0.14), nYPA (4.2), and EPA/DB from either a clean pocket (-0.03) or when pressured (-0.38).
This whole season has been somewhat weird for Mahomes, who has posted a similar QB+ over the last two seasons. However, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year and are well on the way to clinching the top seed in the AFC, so it is hard to complain too much. When you watch the games, it is clear Mahomes is not playing to the level from earlier in his career, and it reflects in the Chiefs’ unconvincing wins they have strung together.
The biggest concern in Mahomes’ numbers this season has been a 0.24 EPA/DB from a clean pocket, which ranks 18th in football. The other numbers are good without being special, and his 11 interceptions are among the worst in the league. He has relied on a lot of help after the catch, ranking eighth in YAC/Cp at 5.8, but it seems to be working in key spots with a 47.9% third-down conversion rate.
Mahomes’ ankle injury is certainly a concern for Kansas City, but it would be a bigger concern if he was playing at the level we saw in his MVP seasons and the team was only barely winning. The way this team is set up, Carson Wentz merely has to be league-average, and this team should still have a chance to win two of their final three games.
