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Patrick Mahomes is doing everything in his power to return to the NFL gridiron for the start of the 2026-2027 season.
“That’s the goal to be able to practice when we get to training camp, and we hit that next step,” Mahomes, 30, said in a Friday, July 24, press conference, sharing a health update after his offseason ACL surgery. “Now, it’s gonna be about building and keep getting better and better, so that whenever the regular season comes around, I can try to be available and ready to play.”
Mahomes, the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, sustained a season-ending leg injury at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 NFL season, requiring ACL surgery that kept the star player off the field for the rest of the team’s scheduled games.(The Chiefs failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014, ending their season in January ahead of the road to the Super Bowl.)
Mahomes has steadily been making gains in his recovery ahead of the team’s training camp practices, which kick off in Saint Joseph, Missouri, later this month.
While speaking to reporters on Friday, Mahomes noted that he recently saw his physician “two days ago” who cleared his return to practice.
“He saw the numbers I was putting up and that gave him the comfortability [to be] fully cleared to practice,” the quarterback revealed of his doctor’s advice. “It’s still good to be out there and have bodies around and be able to run the offense. This is just another checkpoint on the schedule.”
He added, “You have to continue to work. It’s not, like, it’s over and I’m gonna be able to play a game tomorrow. You have to continue to work and get better and better and go through all practice, prove to the coaches [and] prove to the doctors and everybody that I’m the same quarterback I was, if not better.”
As for Mahomes himself, he believes he will be ready to conquer the gridiron once more.
“I’m a competitor, so game day, I wanna be out there,” the three-time Super Bowl champ stated on Friday. “I understand the process of getting myself ready to play, and the regular season is more important [than preseason games]. We will, the doctors and coaches will make that decision for me, but I will prepare myself like I’m gonna play.”
Until then, Mahomes plans to “go out there with the rookies” and give his all during training camp.
“If I’m doing a warmup, I will take that as serious[ly] as playing in the preseason game,” he said. “It’s a couple weeks away, but it feels a long ways away.”
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