Patrick Mahomes taking a knee to the head.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ game against the Tennessee Titans has seen the Chiefs struggle on a lot of fronts, from giving up Derrick Henry’s first NFL passing touchdown to trailing 27-3 in the fourth quarter (a score they’d eventually lose by), but the final-quarter injury to quarterback Patrick Mahomes might be the most prolonged consequence from it. Mahomes left the game after stretching forward while going down from a tackle and taking a knee to the head from Titans’ DE Jeffery Simmons.

Here’s another angle of that:

That certainly looks bad for Mahomes. And yes, he’s had his struggles this season, posting 167 completions on 242 attempts for 1,887 yards with 18 touchdowns and eight interceptions heading into this game. That’s not bad overall, but it’s already more interceptions than he threw in either 2019 or 2020. And he had a poor stat line (20 completions on 35 attempts for 206 yards with no touchdowns and an interception) in this game, too.

But Mahomes is 26, a three-time Pro Bowler (2018-20), and the 2018 NFL MVP and Super Bowl LIV (2020) MVP. So some recent struggles don’t necessarily override all of that. And the Chiefs will certainly be hoping that this isn’t too serious of an injury for him. We’ll update this post as more information becomes available on his injury.

Update: Mahomes did speak to media after the game. As per The Athletic’s Nate Taylor, he said he felt fine:

Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk adds that Mahomes passed a sideline concussion evaluation, but head coach Andy Reid decided not to send him back into the game. On the day, Mahomes was sacked four times and hit five other times, including on this play.

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About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.