The worst thing that could have happened to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII was a Patrick Mahomes injury, and that’s what appeared to occur near the end of the first half Sunday night. Mahomes limped off the field after appearing to reinjure his right ankle and could be seen writhing in pain on the bench while being attended to by the team’s medical staff.
Backup quarterback Chad Henne could be seen warming up, but once the team went back in locker room, Mahomes put mind over matter in regard to his ailing ankle.
“Rick, I’m fine,” Mahomes told Chiefs VP of sports medicine and performance Rick Burkholder, per Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer.
Mahomes refused treatment and then took charge of the locker with with a message for the second half with his team down 24–14.
“It was, ‘Don’t panic,’” quarterbacks coach Matt Nagy recalled of Mahomes’s message. “And then it was go out there and get a touchdown the very next time we get out there, in the third quarter.”
Mahomes did just that in the second half, leading the Chiefs to 24 more points on his way to being named Super Bowl MVP for his three-touchdown performance. Mahomes initially suffered a high ankle sprain in the divisional round of the postseason against the Jaguars, but nothing could keep the Kansas City gunslinger from going back on that field.
“He just wanted to be left alone,” coach Andy Reid said. “Those high ankle sprains, you tweak them and they hurt like heck. And then you gotta kind of let it calm down a little bit. And some guys can handle it, and some guys can’t. And so we started warming [backup QB Chad] Henne up, obviously before the half, but he was able to push through the pain, which is unbelievable.”
