After five Super Bowl appearances in the last six seasons, including three trophies, as well as seven straight AFC championship games and nine consecutive divisional first-place finishes, the Kansas City Chiefs saw their incredible run of dominance come crashing to a halt with a 16-13 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday.
The loss eliminated the Chiefs from making an 11th straight playoff appearance and left the defending AFC champions needing to win all three of their remaining games simply to finish with a winning record this season.
But the story of the Chiefs’ disaster didn’t end there. Perhaps even more important than their lackluster win-loss results was the fate of future Hall of Fame quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Since becoming the Chiefs’ full-time starter in 2018 â his second year after becoming Kansas City’s first-round draft pick, 10th overall, out of Texas Tech â Mahomes has not only made the playoffs every season, he has piloted his team to the AFC title game every year of his career.
That obviously won’t happen this year â and it may not happen next year either. Mahomes left Sunday’s game after suffering a serious knee injury that required surgery the next day. While Mahomes and Chiefs coach Andy Reid have expressed optimism that he could return as early as Week 1 in 2026, the reality is that there is no certainty about when the two-time NFL MVP will be back in action.
And Mahomes was not the only injured Chief on Sunday.
Receiver Suffers Blow to the Head
With just over 13 minutes remaining in the game and the Chiefs trailing by three points â the score that would also end the game â fourth-year wide receiver Tyquan Thornton took a shot from Chargers safety Tony Jefferson that appeared to impact the side of the 25-year-old pass-catcher’s helmet.
Thornton collapsed to the ground and lay largely motionless for a lengthy period of time.
The hit led to a skirmish on the field between Chiefs and Chargers players. Officials then ejected Jefferson from the game, ruling his hit on Thornton an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit â though Jefferson did not appear to attack Thornton with the intent of leading with his helmet. Instead, as he saw Jefferson approaching, Thornton lowered his head, an action which on video seemed to leave him vulnerable to a head shot.
Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh defended his player, saying, “I saw a football play. That’s what I saw,” as quoted by USA Today.
Thornton Held Out of Practice
Thornton was a second-round draft pick of the New England Patriots in 2022, but he was never able to catch on under either legendary head coach Bill Belichick or Belichick’s successor Jerod Mayo. After missing four weeks in his rookie season with a collarbone injury, then five weeks in his sophomore campaign with an injured shoulder, the Patriots waived him in November 2024. That’s when the Chiefs picked him up.
Before the 2025 season, Kansas City signed Thornton to a one-year, $1.1 million contract.
Now Thornton has another injury, this one potentially the most serious of all because it affects his brain. The Chiefs held Thornton out of Wednesday practice due to the concussion he suffered from the hit in Sunday’s game, according to the team’s injury report.
Though the Chiefs have not yet ruled Thornton out of next Sunday’s Week 16 game against the Tennessee Titans, it would be extremely unusual for him to be available just a week after suffering what appeared to be a significant concussion. Studies show that the median time for an NFL player to complete the league’s concussion protocol is nine days.
But a study of players in the 2012 to 2015 seasons by Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital showed an average time of 19 days for, specifically, wide receivers and running backs to return to action.
Either way, Thornton would be expected to sit out the Week 16 game in Tennessee.
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