Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes didn’t want to come out of game after helmet crack
Patrick Mahomes him to retire from the NFL?
Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs were expected to defeat the Miami Dolphins on Saturday night, and that’s exactly what they did. The convincing 26-7 victory eliminated the Dolphins from the playoffs at the wild-card round — and enhanced Mahomes’ own playoff legacy.
What Mahomes has done for the Chiefs franchise cannot be overstated. The two-time MVP almost instantly became the best quarterback in the NFL upon winning the starting quarterback job in 2018, and he’s since guided Kansas City to three Super Bowl appearances (and counting) — which has had a positive affect on the Chiefs’ once-lousy all-time playoff record
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes seems to do things on the football field that fans are not accustomed to, and it occurred again Saturday night against the Miami Dolphins.
Mahomes was trying to run for a touchdown in the third quarter when he was met by Dolphins defensive back DeShone Elliott. The two collided with each other in the helmet, and Mahomes was prevented from scoring on the play.
The broadcast showed Mahomes’ helmet cracked at the top. NFL officials stopped play so he could get a new helmet. He told reporters after the game he never had his helmet crack like that before.
Mahomes seemed upset as he got the backup helmet on. He said it didn’t fit him initially and thought it had something to do with the cold tightening it up.
“They have a backup that’s out there, we have to talk about where we store the backup because it was like frozen, so when I tried to put it on. It was completely frozen, I couldn’t get it on,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone got a picture of it, it didn’t look great. We were able to adjust it on the sideline, get it kind of warmed up a bit and get rolling from there.”
Kansas City won the game 26-7.
Mahomes finished 23-of-41 with 262 passing yards and a touchdown pass to Rashee Rice. He ran for 41 yards on two carries.
Mahomes: 12 wins in 15 playoff games
Since Mahomes took his first playoff snap in January 2019, he has lost only three games — and none of them before the conference championship round. A run of 12 wins from 15 postseason games has brought the Chiefs’ all-time playoff record back to even — 21-21 — following decades of struggle.
Before Mahomes’ emergence, the Chiefs averaged one win for every three playoff games. Kansas City went 49 years without playing in (or winning) a Super Bowl. Between 1998 and 2014, the Chiefs made only four trips to the postseason; Kansas City has since made the playoffs in nine consecutive seasons, and it has made five consecutive appearances in the AFC Championship Game. Before Mahomes, the Chiefs had made only one appearance in the conference title game since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
The Chiefs’ win on Saturday came in some of the most inhospitable conditions in NFL history. The temperature at kickoff was minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit — the coldest game in the history of Arrowhead Stadium and the fourth-coldest kickoff temperature in league history. With wind chill, that minus-4 really felt like minus-27 — and at one point in the game, Mahomes’ helmet cracked on a run play.
