a QB4 per-game rate with a rising rushing share, but a torn ACL and bottom-tier 2025 accuracy, priced QB14 (his lowest ever). Weapons are back; it's a bet on a clean knee and an accuracy rebound.
Patrick Mahomes 2026 Season Preview — a torn ACL under the QB4 rate
Show notes & transcript▾
Patrick Mahomes still finished as a top-four fantasy quarterback per game last season. He also tore his ACL near the end of it, and graded as one of the least accurate passers in the league. He's the fourteenth quarterback off the board — the lowest he's ever been drafted, for real reasons. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The 2025 season was good-not-vintage, then cut short: fourteen games, twenty-point-three a game, QB4 per game but QB11 in total, on three thousand five hundred passing yards, twenty-two touchdowns, eleven picks, plus four hundred twenty-two rushing yards and a rushing share that crept up to a quarter of his points. The signature was a three-touchdown, one-rushing-score game against Detroit in Week 6. Productive — but the underlying accuracy was poor, a completion percentage over expected near the bottom of the league.
The arc shows a clear dip from the peak: years of twenty-four-to-twenty-six a game, then a slide to the high teens in 2023 and 2024, and back to twenty-three in 2025. Still elite by reputation; no longer automatically the QB1.
What the data says, both directions: the QB4-per-game rate and the climbing rushing share are genuine positives — and the rushing share now nudges him into the floor-friendly tier. But the accuracy was bad, the kind of number that caps a passing ceiling, and a torn ACL is a torn ACL. The talent is unquestioned; the 2025 tape and the knee are the questions.
The situation, per the reports, is recovery and reinforcements: Mahomes is rehabbing the ACL after signing an extension, and the Chiefs get Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy back healthy, with Mahomes himself optimistic the offense can be "really, really good." A healthy Mahomes with that arsenal is a top-five quarterback; a Mahomes a step slow off a knee reconstruction is the risk.
The price: pick ninety-five and a half, QB14. Verdict: WATCHLIST — the QB4 rate, the rising rushing share, and healthy weapons argue he's underpriced; the torn ACL, the poor 2025 accuracy, and the two-year dip from his peak argue the discount is earned. Genuinely mixed, which is exactly why he's a watch and not a pound-the-table call. The counter for him: it's Patrick Mahomes at QB14, and the weapons are back. Against: you're betting on a clean ACL return and an accuracy rebound at once.
September watch: the knee — mobility and the rushing volume that now matters to his value; and the accuracy, the thing that quietly slipped. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 3,587 passing yards, 22 passing TDs, 11 INTs; 422 rushing yards on 64 carries, 5 rushing TDs (14 games)
More episodes
2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Patrick Mahomes 2025 Season in Review
QB11 on the season — 14 games, 20.4 PPR/game
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Patrick Mahomes 2025 Season in Review
QB11 on the season — 14 games, 20.4 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Patrick Mahomes in 2025 — let's set the table. He finished as the number 11 quarterback in total PPR scoring, but the number 4 quarterback on a per-game basis. That gap tells the whole story before we open the box: Mahomes was a high-end weekly producer on a team that fell apart around him. The Chiefs went 6 and 11, missed the playoffs for the first time in the Mahomes era, and he suited up for just 14 games. When he played, top-five fantasy arm. When the operation needed him to drag a broken roster, the math caught up — and the real-football efficiency numbers underneath were rough.
Now let's dig into the numbers, because this is where it gets interesting. Mahomes averaged 20.4 PPR points per game on a boom-or-bust profile, and a huge chunk came from his legs: 422 rushing yards on 64 carries — 6.6 a pop — plus 5 rushing touchdowns. That rushing floor is what locked in the top-five per-game finish. The passing efficiency got muffed. His completion percentage over expected was minus 2.9, 31st among qualified passers — bottom of the league. Adjusted net yards per attempt of 6.2 ranked 19th. He threw 22 touchdowns against 11 interceptions and took 34 sacks behind protection that graded in the 41st percentile. On consistency, six games of 23 PPR or better — including a 31.5 against Detroit and back-to-back four-touchdown games against Baltimore and Dallas. But four games under 14 points, bottoming out at 6.3 against Houston in a three-interception clunker. Elite ceiling, real floor games mixed in, especially down the stretch when Kansas City lost eight of their last nine.
The defining play wasn't a touchdown — it was the third-quarter pick-six in Jacksonville. Tied 14-14, second and three at the Jaguars' three-yard line, Mahomes throws short middle for Juju Smith-Schuster, Devin Lloyd jumps it and takes it 99 yards the other way. Expected points on that snap: minus 12.7. A 14-point swing in a game the Chiefs lost by three. That's the season in miniature — Mahomes in scoring position, red-zone touchdown rate sitting in the bottom quarter of the league, one disastrous decision flipping the result. The arm talent and the rushing upside kept him fantasy-relevant every week. The accuracy and the turnovers are why the Chiefs are watching January at home.
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