Quarterback · Kansas City Chiefs

Patrick Mahomes

No. 15 · 10th season

Cleared, braced, and back on his own terms

The brace wasn't anyone else's idea. Patrick Mahomes decided to wear it, and he'll decide when he doesn't have to.

He tore his ACL and LCL late last season during a game against the Los Angeles Chargers — the kind of injury that tends to do the talking for a while. The Kansas City Chiefs missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The quarterback who had come to feel like a permanent fixture in January football spent the winter watching from somewhere else.

Now he's been fully cleared for training camp. The brace is there when he wants it, gone when he doesn't. He says he can still move the way he needs to — still be himself out there.

That last part matters. For a player whose whole game is the unexpected — the scramble that shouldn't work, the throw from the wrong platform — "still being himself" is the whole question. Not whether he's healthy on paper, but whether the instincts come back unchecked.

One missed postseason. One cleared quarterback. The brace is a small thing, until it isn't.

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