'I held my breath': As Kenneth Walker carries Chiefs win, Patrick Mahomes explains where he's fully back — and where he's not

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Facing second-and-15 from the 15-yard line, Patrick Mahomes wasn't planning to scramble.

The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback wanted to get hit on the run at some point in his first game back from an ACL and LCL tear, he'd told head coach Andy Reid.

But on this first drive, as Mahomes dropped back in the red zone, he was planning to pass the ball to Travis Kelce .

Then Kelce wasn't open, and Denver Broncos defenders started closing in from both sides, so Mahomes figured he'd pick up a few yards to edge the Chiefs closer to third-and-manageable. Instead, Broncos defenders were falling in his wake and Mahomes sensed a dive over the rest could sail him into the end zone.

From the sideline, three-time All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones wanted to yell: "Pat, slide. "

"The ACL, I was a little nervous, but Pat is a big body, ran it in," Jones said. "Once he got up and hit the shoulders, I was like, 'OK, we're good. We're good.'

"But for a minute, I held my breath to make sure QB1 is OK."

After 274 days, Mahomes proved Monday night that he is OK. Or at least, mostly. The Chiefs' star quarterback proved his seemingly endless days of rehabilitation have successfully returned him to the physical capacity to thrive at the NFL level. He proved he can elude defenders via jukes and dives, and he can operate the Chiefs' offense with some degree of proficiency.

But as the Chiefs steamrolled the 2025 AFC runner-up Denver Broncos in a 31-10 victory , Mahomes saw a reality other than his return to dominance. He felt physically fine, sustained no new injuries and possessed the strength to take on high-speed collisions. But psychologically, as is often the case for players returning from season-ending injuries like the surgery-requiring ACL and LCL tears Mahomes sustained last Dec. 14, Mahomes is not yet there. He admitted he was rushing his throws, at times not advancing to second and third progressions that would have opened up bigger plays. He threw for explosive plays in theory, but in practice the Chiefs' big passing gains came almost entirely through checkdowns extended with yards after the catch. And as he readjusts to the speed of the game, Mahomes said he "had a few overstrides" that resulted in low throws.

"I got to get back to being balanced where I can make those throws…" he said. "I was trying to force a few things early."

Nonetheless, the Chiefs beat the Broncos by building a team that stepped up around its quarterback. On offense, that started and ended with a prized free-agency acquisition, running back Kenneth Walker .

"Whenever I felt like I didn't play my best football, we were still able to go out there and beat a really good football team pretty well," Mahomes said. "And it's because the guys around me stepped up and knew that they were going to have to help me as I get back into the rhythm of things."

Explosive Kenneth Walker stepped up when Mahomes needed it

Even Mahomes' first scramble succeeded in part because of the pattern the Chiefs established on that drive.

After Jones' sack and rookie cornerback Mansoor Delane's interception gifted Mahomes a short field on his first possession, Kansas City did not ask Mahomes to throw and throw and throw.

Walker, who capped his four Seattle Seahawks seasons with a Super Bowl MVP performance in February , ran seven times for 32 yards to set up Mahomes' scramble. The back whom the Chiefs praise as tough and patient between the tackles as well as adept at bouncing with speed and breaking away was just getting started.

By night's end, Walker would amass a whopping 191 yards and two touchdowns from scrimmage.

"It means a lot," he said. "It means they trust me."

The Chiefs trusted Walker in the pass game and the run game. They trusted him on first, second and third down. And in the third quarter, facing fourth-and-1 from their own 40, the Chiefs trusted Walker to gain the yard on fourth.

"A thing of beauty," Reid later described it.

The Chiefs had loaded up their line of scrimmage with heavy personnel, defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga among the blockers who in theory could help Walker through the heart of the Broncos' defense. Walker took the handoff and began to charge forward before bouncing out to his left. Beating Broncos defenders to the left sideline, he raced and raced and raced. Even a late dive by Broncos safety Brandon Jones couldn't stop him. Chiefs teammates said Walker's explosiveness was nearly expected after a training camp defined by plays like this. Mahomes traced even further back to his belief in Walker's performance.

"The moment he got the edge, I've seen it," Mahomes said. "I've seen it in practice, I saw it all last year in the playoffs: Once he gets the edge, he's gone…

"It's a special ability and we're going to utilize it."

The Chiefs again tapped into Walker's special abilities in the fourth quarter, when they faced first down from the 2-yard line. Mahomes and backup quarterback Justin Fields lined up side by side in the backfield, in a three-point stance. Walker aligned out left closer to the line of scrimmage, running to his right in concert with both quarterbacks running to their left.

Like on Mahomes' initial rushing touchdown, Walker was not the guaranteed scorer on this play that Chiefs coaches had found from black-and-white grainy film dating back to 1936.

In fact, multiple Chiefs players said they anticipate running this "Heisman" play again with a different outcome. But with 14:43 to play in the fourth quarter, Mahomes tossed the ball to Walker, who cut through the middle of Denver's defense.

The 31-10 advantage Kansas City mounted would last through the quarter as time expired.

Walker's 191 yards from scrimmage amounted to more than the Broncos' entire production on the night (176 net yards) .

The clip that Fields laughed dated to a time when "I don't even know when Coach Reid was born" sealed a contest that started out close before the Chiefs outscored Denver 24-3 in the final three quarters.

A Chiefs team that finished last season 6-11 could briefly exhale — and then fire themselves up to do this 16 more times this season. Do they feel like they're hunters rather than the hunted for the first time in the Mahomes era?

"It feels good, right, to hunt?" Jones said. "It feels really, really good. Last year taught us a lot as an organization, as a team. To experience the season we had last year, I think we learned a lot about ourselves. And it put us in a position to be so eager to get back to being successful.

"I don't think we ever stopped hunting, but it's on such a deeper level right now. I think everyone is bought into this team."

Mahomes reflects on his return: 'I got to be better'

As Mahomes ran down the strobe light-lit Arrowhead tunnel starting another season 1-0, he high-fived a row of waiting hands.

Mahomes then hugged and shook hands with several members of the Hunt family, team owners of the Chiefs.

"I'm good," he told them through the embraces. "Glad to be back out there."

Principal team owner Clark Hunt slapped him on the back as he headed into the locker room.

In that moment and in a later quiet moment with Hunt, Reid, Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany Mahomes, a degree of calm permeated. Mahomes' rehabilitation seemed to work. Shaky first-half glimpses began to smooth with second-half play-calling shifts.

Benchmarks awaited — deeper reads in progressions, more downfield passing — but benchmarks had also been reached.

So Mahomes asked Brittany if she wanted to join for the press conference and strolled up to the podium in Adidas gear shoulder to toe, a black-beaded cross necklace hanging on his chest.

He held himself accountable with a realization that would not have characterized the bulk of his first eight seasons starting for the Chiefs.

"I got to be better in the pass game," Mahomes said. "If we're going to run the ball like this, defense is going to come up and try to force us to pass it. And I have to be able to showcase that we can do that. …

"We're just in the very beginning of the season and we had a great game, but how are we going to build on it and how are we going to get better? That starts with me, and it kind of feeds throughout this entire team."

On Monday, as Mahomes rebounded from an 8-of-18 first half to complete 15 of 27 passes for 184 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, the Chiefs rushed for 220 yards to set the tone and control the clock against a team that ranked top three in most major categories last season.

The Chiefs' defense not only gifted Mahomes the interception-prompted short field early in the game but also forced and recovered two fumbles; allowed Denver just 2-of-12 conversions on third down; and held the Broncos out of the end zone after Mahomes threw an interception on what appeared to be a miscommunication between him and receiver Xavier Worthy .

Even in the passing game, targets helped out Mahomes to the tune of downfield blocks and yards after the catch.

When Kelce tacked on 54 yards after the catch to his 59-yard pass play, Worthy and receiver Rashee Rice blocked emphatically downfield.

Running back Emmett Johnson took passes in the backfield from 3 and 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage to 28 and 25 beyond them.

Mahomes did not complete a pass beyond 12 air yards. On Monday, he did not need to for the Chiefs to fall asleep first in their division.

What Rice called an "unexplainable" amount of work from Mahomes' offense was paying off. Mahomes was a "warrior," Johnson said, Fields adding of Mahomes: "People probably had a bunch of questions there. Everybody here knew that he was fine."

The rust, as the Chiefs' win over the Broncos elapsed, was softening.

And the juice Mahomes has so long injected into the Chiefs was back — because Mahomes was back and because the quarterback returning from ligament tears scrambled 15 yards to the end zone for a diving touchdown.

"Pat is the best quarterback in the league so you can't just key the run game," said Walker, whose first four seasons came running beside Geno Smith and Sam Darnold . "He'll throw a ball over your head and he can run, so he's just a threat either way.

"I think I'll just come with more trust in me and trust in the knee and then trust in the offensive line to make those protections…" Mahomes said. "For us to go out there and win like that, obviously that's the first step. It shows that all that work in training camp, it paid off.