Chiefs VP of Sports Medicine and Performance Rick Burkholder is holding no illusions about Patrick Mahomes’ knee injury return timeline
The Kansas City Chiefs’ Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance gave a big update on Patrick Mahomes’ knee injury on Wednesday.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance, Rick Burkholder, gave a comprehensive update on QB Patrick Mahomes’ knee injury on Wednesday.
He first opened things up by explaining the timeline and decisions that ultimately led to what some believed was a quicker-than-normal surgery. The reality is that the specific injury he had required the particular surgical timeline, which isn’t necessarily the same for an isolated ACL tear.
“On Sunday night, (Patrick Mahomes) had a significant left knee injury on a non-contact, hyperextension injury,” Burkholder began. “Immediately following the game, we came down here and did an MRI. That MRI revealed an ACL injury, anterior cruciate ligament, and a lateral collateral ligament injury. That lateral collateral ligament you may see as a posterior lateral corner (PLC), because there’s some other structures back there that constitute that. After that, our doctors, Patrick, his family, and his agent consulted, and then we sought out a second opinion. Everybody agreed that he would go to Dr. (Daniel) Cooper in Dallas. Dr. Cooper set up an appointment for him on Monday morning for Monday afternoon, and then operated on Monday night. The reason he wanted to operate on him quickly, where we usually wait on the ACLs, is because the LCL, we wanted to reattach the avulsion injury.”
An avulsion injury involving the LCL occurs when the ligament forcefully pulls smaller pieces of bone. It can lead to other, more serious and career-altering injuries that Patrick Mahomes seemingly avoided due to the timeline of the surgery.
Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes escaped this injury much better off than it could have been
According to Burkholer, things could’ve been a lot worse for the star quarterback. He avoided any serious injuries that aren’t correctable or fixable, which could lead to long-term concerns about his career trajectory following the injury.
“As Dr. Cooper told us, after seeing the MRI and my doctor saw it, they said everything that he had in this injury was fixable, correctable,” Burkholder said. “And it was fixed on Monday night by Dr. Cooper. He had no artery damage, no nerve damage, no joint surface damage, and no meniscal damage. He’s already started rehab down in Dallas. He was there first thing Tuesday morning, and he’ll do that through tomorrow, and then he’ll be back here Friday. As you know, in the past, with Patrick and his injuries, he attacks them and does very well, and he’s in that mode right now. I’ve talked to him every day. I know Coach (Andy Reid) has to, and he’s already on it. He’ll return here on Friday, and for the majority of the rehab. He’ll do it with my staff, and in particular Julie Frymeyer, who’s done his dislocated patella, his toe injury, and his ankle injuries.”
Mahomes’ working relationship with the Chiefs’ athletic trainer, Julie Frymyer, is such that she’s even joined him in recent State Farm commercials.
Rick Burkholder provides a realistic recovery timeline for Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes
A big question that continues to come up for Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes’ injury is the recovery timeline. Will he be ready to play come Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season, given how late the injury occurred in the 2025 NFL season? Burkholder gave a realistic ballpark timeline, with the shorter range (September) putting him in line to start Week 1. The more extended range could see Mahomes not return to the field until November.
“It is a good question. It’s coming up a lot,” Burkholder said. “Every player is different. Every sport is different, every position is different. And with him, traditionally, he’s going after it so hard, and he’s so in-tune with what he does that he does it a little quicker. Ballpark on this thing is nine months, could be a month or two less, a month or two more. You never know what goes on. And everybody’s designed differently biomechanically, and so you just have to go through it. And then he’s got, you know, position specific things that he needs to do. So right now, I’ll give you this. Early on in the rehab phase, we’re doing a lot to get his muscles firing, get the swelling down, and he’s in a protective brace right now so that all that surgery heals in.”
Mahomes’ past recoveries from injuries are reason enough for optimism, but there are other reasons to be optimistic.
Rick Burkholder shared something unique about Patrick Mahomes’ LCL surgery
One thing that Burkholder revealed suggests Mahomes’ LCL injury wasn’t as severe as it could’ve been and might have been only a partial tear, rather than a complete one. When you’re dealing with a full-thickness ligament tear, oftentimes surgery requires a graft of healthy tissue to repair or fully replace the damaged ligament. That wasn’t the case for Mahomes, who saw Dr. Cooper repair his LCL using advanced techniques that did not require a graft. It’s one of the medical advancements that could ultimately lead to a better rehab and recovery for Mahomes.
“There’s new techniques out there surgically,” Burkholder said. “And I think the bigger and faster these guys are, the more you see injuries like this. And so the doctors are better doing it. And certainly, we all selected a doctor who’s done this surgery in the past, and he did some techniques based on what was there, which are unique to the case. So, sometimes you have to use a graft on the lateral collateral ligament. He didn’t have to do that because he’s got advanced techniques. And then the same way with rehab. I mean, we’ve gotten a lot better at rehabilitation, and the athlete’s gotten way better at nutrition, recovery, and all the things that go with it.”
As for how Mahomes stacks up against other players that Burkholder has helped rehab and recover from injuries like this, Burkholder maintains that No. 15 is 1-of-1.
“Yeah, I think, I think as you guys know, as a player, his mindset is a little different than most,” Burkholder said. “He’s so regimented in what he does. He’s in here at 6 a.m. (and) he’s the last guy out at night. He’ll take the rehab like that. He and I talked about, ‘Listen, you have a schedule right now in season where you get treatment at this time. We have our film at this time practice. That’s how rehab has got to be.’ And that’s how it’s always been with him, and it will. And when you add up all the little things that allow the player to get back faster— they don’t heal up any faster, they just get back to performance faster.”
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