32% of people think he should still play? That’s nuts. 68% think he shouldn’t, but the Chiefs don’t appear to be even weighing the decision, already saying he’ll return in hopefully 3 weeks. That’s more nuts.
Chao is the only one talking about how risky this is...no one else in the media seems to be running with this at all. The other thing is, he will not be the same QB until he gets surgery and will be very limited in his mobility. In fact, Aaron Rodgers had a more minor knee injury last year, and while his TD:INT ratio was great, he was clearly slowed and not himself. The Mahomes injury is a lot worse.
Gronkowski also “wanted to play” according to the media when he re-broke his forearm in the 2012 postseason. It never fully healed, and many have said this lead to long-term bitterness with the Patriots, or at least their medical staff, hence the well known Gronk family council making calls on injuries going forward. Just recently we saw this happen with Kevin Durant; he likely won’t be the same player again. For all the “are you a doctor?” snarky comments, Chao knows what he’s talking about, and we see this all the time in sports with these guys getting medical advice, second opinions, etc, and ultimately still damaging their careers by hearing what they want to hear, as teams rarely put their foot down and tell them they’re not playing due to the risk.
I think this is an asanine decision if the Chiefs are really going to have Mahomes make this call and if they’re not strongly considering shutting him down. He’s a young guy with a feeling of invincibility, and of course he’s going to want to play and prove his toughness to his teammates and the world. You have literally the most promising young NFL player in 35 years, an immediate superstar, and you’re going to have him play through a dislocated kneecap (which Chao clearly thinks is at high risk for re-injury and even potential permanently worse damage) all for the sake of one season, where the team appears to have huge competitive problems anyway? I honestly hope Mahomes is okay; he is fun to watch and probably the future of the league. This has nothing to do with being a Pats fan either; if anything, I think playing him this year has much more potential competitive advantage for the Pats long-term, in that their only looming yearly threat is risking losing everything, and I think the Pats would rather handily beat the Chiefs anyway this year and probably won’t even play them in the postseason (Chiefs eliminated first.)
