NFL legend Tom Brady sends Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes a warning as he prepares for major challenge after knee surgery
Tom Brady had some words of caution for Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes as he faces his ACL recovery.
Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Tom Brady have shared some similarities in their NFL careers. Now, they share another similarity.
During the 2008 NFL season, Tom Brady’s ninth season in the league and eighth as a starter with the Patriots, he suffered a torn ACL in Week 1 and would miss the rest of the season. In Week 15 against the Los Angeles Chargers, Patrick Mahomes found himself following in Brady’s footsteps in the worst possible way. Mahomes tore his ACL (and LCL) in his ninth NFL season and eighth as a starter. The injuries and timelines might be different, but Mahomes, like Brady, now faces a significant challenge in his NFL career.
Tom Brady warns Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes of what’s to come after knee surgery
On the latest episode of Let’s Go! Podcast, FOX Sports broadcaster and NFL legend Tom Brady joined host Jim Gray to discuss Patrick Mahomes’ knee injury and how he coped with his ACL injury during his career. Within that discussion, Brady offered Mahomes a warning about what he’ll now face as he shifts his focus from training to rehabilitation.
“The only thing you can do is focus on what’s ahead of you and not look back,” Brady said. “And just say, ‘OK, this is part of what my career is going to be.’ And a lot of people have gone through it, and a lot of people have overcome it. You’ve just got to put as much diligence into the rehab process. And I always feel like the faster you rehab, the faster you can get back to practicing the sport that you know you love. I think sometimes people will pace themselves. Instead of training mode, they’re in rehab mode. I think you gotta get through rehab mode as fast as possible, and then you get back to training mode. But that requires an all-out commitment, and it’s the same commitment that the great professional athletes make to be great at their profession. When you go through the rehab process, you need that same level of focus and determination.”
There’s a pretty clear distinction to be made between recovery, rehabilitation, and getting back to typical training to play the game Mahomes loves. He’s got to attack each step, understanding that they are uniquely different. Thankfully, he’s got a strong group of people around him, from the Chiefs’ training staff to his personal trainer Bobby Stroupe, who can help him manage that.
“It’s a tough rehab,” Brady said. “It’s one of the toughest rehabs. I just remember every day pushing myself. And it’s always the same amount of pain and discomfort, except you’re making progress through that pain and discomfort, which is a hard psychological thing to battle. You feel like, ‘God, every day, it doesn’t feel right.’ Except you’re gaining range of motion, and you’re gaining strength, and you are on the road to recovery. So I wish him the very best.”
Mahomes faces a long path back to the field, but as Brady says, many athletes who came before him have overcome exactly what he’s facing. Brady himself included. It’s now a part of his NFL journey, and how he responds to it will determine how the next chapter of his career shapes up.
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