Patrick Mahomes 2026 Season Preview — a torn ACL under the QB4 rate | Muffed

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 thirteenth 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.

[[SITUATION]]

The situation, per the reports, is recovery and reinforcements, both with receipts now: Mahomes tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee on December fourteenth and had surgery the next day; as of June, the GM calls the rehab "way ahead of schedule," Mahomes was throwing in seven-on-sevens at minicamp while being held from full team drills, and the stated goal is Week One with no restrictions. The Chiefs, meanwhile, made him the NFL's first half-billion-dollar player — two years added in June, through 2033 — and stocked the shelves: Rashee Rice is back after serving a thirty-day jail term for a probation violation from the 2024 crash case, plus a knee cleanup, with Reid expecting him on time for camp; Xavier Worthy had shoulder surgery and still came out of the spring as the practice standout; Justin Fields was traded for as insurance; and Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker now anchors the backfield. 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-three, QB13. [pause] Verdict: WATCHLIST — the QB4 rate, the rising rushing share, and the restocked weapons argue he's underpriced; the knee reconstruction, 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 QB13. 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. [[CLOSE]] Your whole roster gets this treatment every week — that's the show.