🚨 The Kansas City Chiefs endured their worst season of the Patrick Mahomes era in 2025, but one NFL analyst still believes no head coach-quarterback partnership is more powerful than Mahomes and Andy Reid.
Kansas City finished a deeply disappointing 6-11, missed the playoffs and watched Mahomes suffer a season-ending knee injury in December.
Yet the Chiefs’ championship pedigree was enough to keep their superstar quarterback and veteran head coach at the top of a new league-wide ranking.
Sports Illustrated’s Matt Verderame evaluated every projected starting quarterback and head coach before combining their positions to identify the NFL’s strongest pairings.
Mahomes and Reid claimed the No. 1 spot.
🏈 The ranking is surprising after everything that went wrong last season.
Kansas City entered 2025 having appeared in three consecutive Super Bowls.
By the end of the campaign, the Chiefs were watching the postseason from home after losing 11 games.
Mahomes’ year ended during a Week 15 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers, when he tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee.
The injury required surgery and created serious uncertainty over whether he will be ready for the beginning of the 2026 season.
Verderame acknowledged there is now a legitimate argument that Kansas City no longer deserves the top ranking.
However, he still placed Mahomes first among NFL quarterbacks and ranked Reid second among head coaches, behind only Los Angeles Rams boss Sean McVay.
🔥 Mahomes’ career achievements ultimately outweighed one difficult season.
The quarterback is already a two-time NFL MVP and three-time Super Bowl champion.
He has led Kansas City to five Super Bowl appearances and seven AFC Championship Games since becoming the starter in 2018.
Even during the Chiefs’ disastrous 2025 campaign, Mahomes remained productive before his injury.
He threw for 3,587 yards and 22 touchdowns in 14 games and ranked sixth in Expected Points Added despite missing the final weeks of the season.
Those numbers may have fallen short of his extraordinary standards, but they reinforced why he remains the defining quarterback of his generation.
👀 The bigger concern is whether Mahomes will be available when the new season begins.
Reports throughout the offseason have described his rehabilitation as encouraging, and he has participated in team activities.
But Reid has repeatedly refused to guarantee a Week 1 return.
During an appearance on The Stephen A. Smith Show, the Chiefs coach admitted the organization has made no assumptions about Mahomes being ready for the opener.
Reid said he would never bet against his quarterback, but acknowledged that Kansas City had strengthened its backup options for a reason.
The Chiefs acquired Justin Fields from the New York Jets for a 2027 sixth-round draft pick.
They also selected LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier in the seventh round of the 2026 NFL Draft.
⚠️ Those moves give Kansas City protection if Mahomes requires more time.
Fields has been receiving important offseason work with the starting offense, while Nussmeier offers another developmental option.
The Chiefs hope neither will need to start for an extended period.
But after seeing their season unravel when Mahomes went down, they could not enter 2026 without a serious contingency plan.
Reid has stressed that the decision will ultimately be based on medical evaluations rather than optimism, public pressure or Mahomes’ own determination.
The coach joked that people continue saying Mahomes is ahead of schedule before asking who created that schedule in the first place.
His message has remained consistent: every player heals differently, and the Chiefs must take the process day by day.
💪 Mahomes is doing everything possible to accelerate his return.
According to Reid, the quarterback has been spending approximately seven hours a day at the Chiefs’ facility working through his rehabilitation programme.
He has not missed a day and reportedly continues asking for more work.
That relentless approach is exactly what Kansas City has come to expect from him.
But Reid also knows Mahomes would attempt to play immediately if he were allowed to make the decision alone.
“If it’s Pat, he’d go play today,” the coach admitted.
The organization, however, will not clear him until it is confident he can protect himself during live action.
📺 Kansas City’s schedule added further intrigue to the recovery story.
The Chiefs will open their season against the defending AFC West champion Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football.
They then host the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday Night Football in Week 2.
The back-to-back prime-time games led some fans to speculate that the NFL must have received private assurances about Mahomes’ availability.
But league executive Hans Schroeder denied that suggestion, saying schedule-makers knew no more than the public about his recovery.
He explained that broadcasters remain strongly interested in the Chiefs regardless, which helped Kansas City receive six prime-time games.
Reid also joked that he had shared nothing with the league office.
🏆 The No. 1 ranking is ultimately a show of faith in what Mahomes and Reid have already built.
One poor season has not erased three championships.
One major injury has not removed Mahomes from the top of the quarterback conversation.
And a 6-11 record has not wiped away Reid’s reputation as one of the greatest offensive coaches in NFL history.
But their position is no longer unquestioned.
Kansas City must prove that last season was an exception rather than the beginning of a decline.
Reid must reshape the team after its dramatic collapse.
Mahomes must recover from the most serious injury of his career.
And together, they must show that the partnership which dominated the AFC can still carry the Chiefs back into contention.
🔥 That is what makes the 2026 season so significant.
Mahomes and Reid enter it ranked as the NFL’s best duo — but with more doubt surrounding them than at any point in their run together.
The history is undeniable.
The talent remains immense.
The respect around the league is still there.
Now they must justify it again.
After an 11-loss season and a devastating knee injury, the Chiefs’ most famous partnership is no longer being celebrated only for what it has achieved.
It is being challenged to prove it can rise again.
