The Kansas City Chiefs’ season ended on Sunday afternoon with a 16-13 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. While the defeat itself was damaging, it wasn’t the biggest storyline to come out of the game. Instead, all eyes turned to star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who suffered a knee injury with just 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter. It was confirmed after the game that Mahomes had torn his ACL and would be out for the remainder of the season.
Although an injury of that magnitude is typically devastating for a franchise, one former NFL linebacker believes this situation may actually represent the best-case scenario for the Chiefs.
Former NFL LB Emmanuel Acho believes Patrick Mahomes Torn ACL is Best Case Scenario
On Sunday night’s episode of the Speak Easy podcast, Emmanuel Acho spoke about Mahomes’ Injury. He said,” Oddly enough, when I saw this happen for Pat, I said this is the best case scenario. Because he will be back in time to start next season. And there is a 100% injury rate in the National Football League, even Tom Brady missed a season.”
Acho added,” The problem when Tom Brady got hurt is he missed like the whole season. Pat’s missing the rest of a season in which his team wasn’t going to make the playoffs anyway, and based upon the ACL, he’ll be back in time for training camp.”
“[Patrick Mahomes] injury is the best-case scenario for the Chiefs”
– @EmmanuelAcho remains optimistic for the Chiefs’ future despite finishing the season without Mahomes
WE ARE LIVE IN THE SPEAKEASY DISCUSSING JOSH ALLEN AS THE BEST QB IN THE NFL ➡️ https://t.co/JCNLbD08ME pic.twitter.com/xeDRgNRa51
— Speakeasy (@speakeasytlkshw) December 15, 2025
While Acho’s comments may seem crazy, they actually do make some sense. No one ever wants to see their quarterback hurt. However, as Acho mentions, the Chiefs don’t have a shot at making the playoffs this season, so Mahomes sustaining a season-ending injury now isn’t as harmful as it could have been.
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The one thing Acho is wrong about is that he said the Chiefs might have shut Mahomes down for the final three games of the season, even if he didn’t get hurt. Although this also makes some sense, Mahomes would have never let that happen. He is way too competitive, and if he were healthy enough to play, he would play.
With the injury, Mahomes ends the 2025 season completing 62.7% of his passes (315 of 502) for 3,587 yards and 11 interceptions. This earned him a 77.6 QB impact score, according to PFSN’s QB impact metric. That’s the second-lowest grade Mahomes has earned in his entire career.
