Patrick Mahomes prides himself on playing through pain. This is the same quarterback who dragged his team to victory – limping with a high ankle sprain – in Week 15 of the 2024 season, and came back the next week to throw for 260 yards, complete not just a touchdown, but also a rushing touchdown. Head coach Andy Reid wasn’t even surprised: “So tough mentally and physically, so you just get used to it,” he’d said at the time. But the injury he suffered last season was a whole lot different.

When Mahomes’ left knee buckled after taking a hit in the fourth quarter last season – Week 15 against the Los Angeles Chargers – two things happened all at once. One, the Kansas City Chiefs’ franchise quarterback just ended his season with a brutal injury. And two, the Chiefs got knocked out of the playoff race for the first time since 2014. That injury, and the struggles of their 6-11 season, are why ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum feels comfortable saying the Chiefs will miss the playoffs in 2026.

“The Kansas City Chiefs will miss the playoffs for a few reasons, starting at quarterback,” Tannenbaum said on ESPN’s Get Up. “Some uncertainty about about will Patrick Mahomes be ready to go from Day 1?”

Now, the rehab question is unshakable this season. Mahomes went to Dallas the very next day after tearing his ACL and MCL, went under the knife, and was handed a nine-month plan that pushed right up against Week 1. But since then, Mahomes has been ahead of schedule, showing up at the OTAs and minicamps in a limited capacity. Once the mandatory minicamps wrapped up, coach Reid noted there’s still one box to check, but Mahomes seems to be ready for it.

“We didn’t have him do the run test today,” Coach Reid said after the team’s conditioning tests. “He probably could’ve done it and made it, I’m sure, with will, but we’ll wait till he gets back here to do it. Anyways, I love what he did this offseason, the way he attacked the rehab. You know, he’s on course to take these next few days and get ready for camp.”

But that wasn’t the only reason Mike Tannenbaum flagged for KC’s playoff run. The second part of his case goes straight at what used to be this team’s engine – the receiver room.

“Secondly, they lack explosiveness at receiver,” Tannenbaum said. “Last year, they were 16th in the league in yards per pass attempt. Some questions about Rashee Rice: will he be ready to go?”

Rashee Rice is coming off a knee surgery and a 30-day jail stint that wiped out his offseason. Xavier Worthy is working back from shoulder surgery, and admitted earlier this June that he’s still “not 100 percent.” But those aren’t the only concerns for the receiver corps.

Last season, Mahomes posted a career-low 89.6 passer rating, and no WR topped 600 yards – Hollywood Brown led the room with 587 yards. Star tight end Travis Kelce picked up the slack by leading the team with 851 receiving yards, but even he missed catches when the games were on the line. Brown has since moved to the Philadelphia Eagles in free agency. The Chiefs, meanwhile, have responded by bringing in Chad O’Shea as the new wide receivers coach to reset the group.

Even LeSean McCoy, the former running back who won Super Bowl LIV with Patrick Mahomes, flagged the receiver room – and Rice specifically – on a recent edition of the Speakeasy podcast. He said Mahomes “should be worried” because “it’s hard to trust Rashee Rice,” because of his injury concerns and off-field narratives. And then there’s the third thing Tannenbaum’s worried about for the Chiefs’ postseason dreams.

“Thirdly, at corner, they lost two great corners in Jaylen Watson and Trent McDuffie,” Tannenbaum added. “Now, they did draft Mansoor Delane [and] re-sign L’Jarius Sneed. But for a great Kansas City Chiefs team, [it’s] unusual to have three important question marks.”

On paper, losing McDuffie and Watson in one offseason is the kind of thing that can flip a defense from top-tier to exposed if the replacements can’t cut it. But the Chiefs spent their No. 6 Pick on LSU cornerback Mansoor Delane; they’ve still got Nohl Williams on a rookie deal, and vets like Sneed, Kristian Fulton, Kader Kohou, and Jadon Canady to round out a pretty solid room of talent.

Now, this depth only matters if Delane is ready fast, and the rest of the group can stay upright for 17 weeks, and hopefully beyond. But then there’s the rest of the AFC West, which isn’t doing the Chiefs any favors either.

KC’s path back to January football runs through a division that finally punched back. The Denver Broncos swept Kansas City last season, including a 22-19 win over Mahomes in Week 11, and another victory in Week 17, where the Chiefs stumbled with backup Chris Oladokun. The Los Angeles Chargers, in the meantime, opened the season with an international victory over Mahomes last season, and compounded it by ending their playoff dreams – as well as Mahomes’ season – in Week 15.

The Las Vegas Raiders don’t feel like a sleeper team anymore, either. They added Kirk Cousins as a veteran bridge hungry to prove himself, and we could also see the No. 1 overall pick, Fernando Mendoza, in action for them sometime this season. This division has suddenly started looking very dangerous as Mahomes rehabs from injury, and the first test comes when they face off against Denver in Week 1.

And yet, for all the red flags, the Chiefs also added a hammer that Tannenbaum didn’t mention. Kenneth Walker III, fresh off a Super Bowl win and an MVP title with the Seattle Seahawks, signed a three-year deal to become Mahomes’ lead back, giving this offense a real answer that can take 25 carries if Mahomes’ legs need a breather.

Meanwhile, Travis Kelce is 36, entering his 16th NFL season on a one-year deal. There are questions around his fit after last season’s struggles, but Kelce is still the tight end Mahomes looks to when it’s fourth-and-desperate, and No. 87 still runs through blockers like a tank to get those extra yards after the catch.

Now, if you stack Mahomes’ knee, a shaky receiver room, real turnover at the corner, and an aging, expensive core against an improved division, you can see how someone can end up saying no playoffs. But the Chiefs Kingdom saw the same Get UP clip, and treated it as something else entirely: a bad national read on a team they live with every day.

Chiefs Kingdom goes against Tannenbaum’s take

Once the Get Up segment hit X, the responses from the Chiefs Kingdom lined up fast behind their QB room and their defense.

“Chiefs have the best QB room in the league, and a top 10 RB, and a defense that can get by at a low end, a top 10 defense if they truly mesh. KC will be fine,” one fan declared.

Now, if Mahomes is on the field and Walker is healthy, seeing this as a non-playoff group doesn’t quite read this year’s depth chart. The bigger question here will be whether the passing game can get back to scaring people, and whether O’Shea and the revamped staff can drag more out of Worthy, Rice, and the rest than Conner Embree’s (previous WRs coach) room. The fanbase doesn’t agree with the Corner assessment either.

“Yeah, as long as one of Fulton/sneed/elam can be healthy and not a spud, our outside depth is fine,” another fan wrote. “We’ve got plenty of options in the slot. Kohou, Candy, CRW.”

One fan even turned the lens on Tannenbaum himself, pulling his credentials as a former NFL GM into question.

“This guy was the Jets GM,” the fan wrote. “He obviously knows nothing about championship football.”

But the biggest support came from someone who looked past all of the question marks, and simply cheered for their team.

“Who cares. They are never right. Just haters,” the fan wrote. “CHIEFS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL. (AGAIN).”

Chiefs Kingdom has already seen this team do stranger things than survive offseason doubt – including literally spinning in a circle before the snap on the “Arctic Circle” trick play against the Raiders in January 2023. Mike Tannenbaum’s concerns are very real, but when the stakes are high, it’s usually not a good idea to bet against the Chiefs. When in doubt, just remember the Arctic Circle, and everything else Coach Reid and Mahomes can bring to the field.