Kansas City’s offseason is really about one uncomfortable question: how much risk can the Chiefs afford behind Patrick Mahomes? That question got louder after Mahomes suffered a season ending left knee injury in Week 15, with Chiefs.com later saying he was targeting Week 1 of the 2026 season during rehab. NFL.com also noted the injury could leave him questionable for the start of the year, which means Kansas City cannot treat the backup spot like a minor detail.
Chiefs facing problems before the start of the season
The first consequence is the most obvious one: the Chiefs could lose games early if Mahomes is not fully ready and the alternative is shaky. Even before the injury, Kansas City had become too dependent on him, and NFL.com wrote after the Week 15 fallout that the offense had grown “far too reliant” on Mahomes’ brilliance. If he is limited, rusty, or forced back too soon, a weak QB2 could turn a manageable stretch into real damage in the standings.
The second consequence is more subtle, but maybe just as important: it can change how the Chiefs handle Mahomes himself. A team with a trustworthy backup can be patient. A team without one often feels pressure to push its star back onto the field before everything is right. Mahomes is working toward Week 1, but that is not the same as a guarantee, especially considering the typical 9-12 month recovery window for this kind of injury. That is exactly why the backup quarterback becomes more than insurance; it becomes part of the recovery plan.
There is also the issue of how the whole roster has to function without him. Mahomes’ 2025 numbers were still strong by normal standards 3,587 passing yards, 22 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and a 68.5 QBR on ESPN but they also reflected a season in which he was carrying a lot. If the replacement level behind him is too low, every weakness around the offense gets magnified: protection feels worse, the margin for play calling shrinks, and every drive starts to feel like survival instead of pressure football.
The good news for Kansas City is that the front office clearly understands the danger. On the team’s official transactions page, the Chiefs added Gardner Minshew and Bailey Zappe this offseason, and Minshew had already been described by Chiefs.com in 2025 as the veteran with the inside track to the backup job because of his starting experience. That does not solve everything, but it shows the club is not ignoring the position. The real question now is whether either option is reliable enough, not just available enough.
So the potential consequences are real and pretty simple. If the Chiefs do not secure a reliable backup, they risk rushing Mahomes, dropping early games, overexposing a flawed offense, and putting even more pressure on a franchise player already coming off the most serious injury of his career. For a normal team, that is a problem. For a team built around one quarterback and still trying to keep its Super Bowl window open, it can become the whole season.
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