Kansas City Chiefs fear Gardner Minshew suffered same fate as Patrick Mahomes, leaving the team entirely depleted at quarterback
The Kansas City Chiefs may have lost two quarterbacks to ACL injuries in as many weeks.
The Kansas City Chiefs have seemingly lost another quarterback to a season-ending knee injury.
During the opening series of the Week 16 loss to the Tennessee Titans, the Chiefs lost backup quarterback Gardner Minshew to a knee injury. He tried to tough it out, playing two series, but it was apparent that something was wrong when he wouldn’t step into his throws and couldn’t drive the football. The team ruled Minshew questionable to return before ultimately ruling him out of the game.
As first reported by Chiefs Digest’s Matt Derrick and later confirmed by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the Chiefs believe Gardner Minshew suffered the same fate as star QB Patrick Mahomes did just last week. The fear is a torn ACL for Minshew, who will likely have an MRI when the team returns to Kansas City to confirm the injury and determine whether any other ligaments were damaged.
“Gardner hurt his left knee,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said after the game. “We don’t have any results for you here. We’ll get that when he gets a chance to have an MRI on it.”
The Chiefs could now be extremely depleted at quarterback
The Chiefs are about as bad off as you can be at the quarterback position with two games left to go. Their lone quarterback on the 53-man roster and practice squad is third-string QB Chris Oladokun, who played in place of Minshew on Sunday. He finished the game 11-of-16 passing for 111 yards. He also carried the ball two times for seven yards. The team’s emergency backup quarterback on Sunday was TE Noah Gray, who will likely fill that role in Week 17’s game on Christmas against the Denver Broncos and Week 18’s finale against the Las Vegas Raiders.
The big question is, who will fill the actual backup quarterback role behind Chris Oladokun with a short week to practice? They could call Shane Buechele, but he might want to stick with the Bills’ practice squad, with a postseason to play for and a Super Bowl still possible. The best option for Kansas City is probably to sign QB Bailey Zappe off the Cleveland Browns’ practice squad. Zappe was with the Chiefs during the offseason. Despite a poor showing during the preseason, he knows the system, so he should be able to get prepared in a hurry. The team also might want to employ a true No. 3 emergency quarterback in these final few weeks, but it remains to be seen if they’ll actually do so.
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