Two weeks into 2026 training camp, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is moving closer to being ready to go five weeks from Monday night.
He continues to recover from a December 14 tear of the ACL and LCL in his left knee.
“It feels great,” Mahomes said Friday, via Nate Taylor of ESPN. “When you’re tired sometimes, you don’t even think about [the knee]. I’m trying to protect it, but at the same time trying to push it and get myself ready to go for the season.”
He’s balancing getting himself ready with keeping his knee healthy.
“I try to be smart, but there’s just sometimes where, in camp, you’re trying to compete and practices are long,” Mahomes said. “I mean, you want to win the rep. There’s times where I do forget about it and just play football.”
That happened on Friday, during a fourth down in 11-on-11 drills. He scrambled toward the right sideline before cutting back and throwing an underhand lateral that became a fumble recovered by the defense.
“I’m trying to hold myself back because I’m just a competitor,” Mahomes said. “I like competing. All of a sudden, I’m running and cutting back and trying to pitch the ball. But when it’s fourth down, you want to try to make a play happen.
“I’m not going to lose who I am, but I’m going to try to keep myself smart and keep myself in position to be out there for my teammates.”
The biggest question when Week 1 rolls around is whether Mahomes will be able to play like he always has. Far from a classic pocket quarterback, Mahomes runs left and right and left and right and buys time before firing a pass to an open receiver. Those movements and cuts will put stress on the knee.
Having running back Kenneth Walker III on the team may result in more running plays for the Chiefs’ offense. Still, when it’s time to pass, Mahomes will apparently forget about the knee and focus on the sticks.
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Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy is staying involved with the team while continuing to support his wife, Mia Bieniemy, as she recovers from a shooting.
“Mia continues to improve,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said today. “We’re heading in the right direction and we’ll just see when he gets back, he gets back here. He’s champing at the bit and Mia is probably wanting to get him out of there too.”
Bieniemy is remaining involved with the team. According to the Kansas City Star, he is watching live streams of training camp practices and calling Reid when he sees something that needs to be addressed.
Elijah Bieniemy, Eric and Mia’s son, is accused of shooting his mother in the family home. He is charged with malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and discharge of a firearm inside a dwelling. Elijah Bieniemy’s attorney told a judge that Elijah “appears to suffer from significant mental health issues” and “does not appear able to assist in his own defense at the present time.”
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has not shied away from playing quarterback Patrick Mahomes in past preseasons, but Mahomes is coming off a torn ACL this summer and it sounds like Reid has a different approach in mind.
The Chiefs will play their first preseason game against the Rams a week from Saturday and Reid said at a Friday press conference that he is not inclined to play Mahomes in that game. Reid went on to say that he doesn’t know if Mahomes will see any game action before the Chiefs host the Broncos on the first Monday night of the regular season.
“There’s a pretty good chance I don’t play him [against the Rams],” Reid said. “Percentages are leaning that way. I don’t know if I’ll play him the second or third game, I don’t know that, but the percentages likely lean against doing that. We’ve got new people in those other positions behind him that need some work, and so the more reps they get, the better.”
Justin Fields, Garrett Nussmeier and Chris Oladokun are the other Chiefs quarterbacks. Fields and Nussmeier are both new to the team this season.
Reid and the Chiefs got to experience life without Mahomes last year and no one in Kansas City will have an appetite for risking a repeat of that in a game that doesn’t factor into the standings. Final answers on the team’s plans will come in the next couple of weeks, but it doesn’t sound like anyone should expect to see No. 15 until September.
Justin Fields has been a starting quarterback for most of his NFL career, but when he was traded to the Chiefs this offseason, he knew he was going to Kansas City to back up Patrick Mahomes. And he says that’s been a valuable experience for him.
Fields said at Chiefs training camp that Mahomes has been coaching him on the Chiefs’ offense and explaining concepts that Fields previously hasn’t learned.
“Any question that I have, he’s been in this offense for 10 years now so he knows every little detail,” Fields said of Mahomes. “Any questions that have popped up, he’s explaining to me perfectly. It’s great learning from him, him showing me the ropes.”
Fields says he’s growing as a quarterback in the unfamiliar position of backup to a future Hall of Famer.
“I’m just trying to expand my horizon, do things I’ve never done before, the amount of concepts, the amount of actions, the amount of stuff we have in the offense,” Fields said. “I’m just trying to practice on that, and really emulate Pat.”
Chiefs rookie wide receiver Cyrus Allen’s hot start to training camp was interrupted by a shin injury last weekend, but Allen’s time away from the field came to an end on Friday.
Allen suited up for practice on Friday for the first time since he was carted off the field during practice last Saturday. Video from Friday’s session shows the fifth-round pick catching passes from Patrick Mahomes during drills.
Allen had been doing well enough in that role to earn time with the first team before his injury and the Chiefs will be hoping he can pick up right where he left off.
Xavier Worthy injured his shoulder on the same day that Allen went down, but the third-year wideout remains on the sideline for the time being.
More details have recently emerged regarding the July 26 shooting of Mia Bieniemy, the wife of Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.
The Athletic reports that, two days before the shooting, Elijah Bieniemy apparently called police to complain that his parents were withholding his firearms from him.
Based on documents obtained by The Athletic via a public records request, a 27-year-old man calling from the Bieniemy address told authorities that “his parents are withholding his weapons and that he’s a certified UFC fighter so now he feels like he cannot defend himself.” The report containing the information did not include the name of the caller.
Per the report, the caller “kept rambling on about also having his [CPR] license and what if he cannot help.”
He also told police that “his parents told him he must give them his firearms if he wants to keep living in the home — and that he could have them back when he needed them.” He said his parents “refuse to give his firearms back when he tries to go to the range to use them.”
Elijah Bieniemy is accused of shooting his mother, Mia Bieniemy. He is charged with malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and discharge of a firearm inside a dwelling.
A judge recently granted a request from Elijah Bieniemy’s public defender for a mental evaluation, arguing that Elijah Bieniemy “appears to suffer from significant mental health issues” and “does not appear able to assist in his own defense at the present time.”
Mia Bieniemy was transferred out of intensive care last week, as she continues to improve following the shooting.
When the NFL changed the kickoff rule two years ago, kickers began to experiment with different ways to kick the ball and make it harder to return. Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker says that affected his approach to kicking, and his field goals suffered.
Butker has had two straight seasons in which both his field goal rate and his extra point rate were below his career averages, and he says he thinks that’s because he was tinkering too much with his kicking motion on kickoffs, at the expense of having a consistent kicking motion on field goals.
“Field goals matter the most,” Butker said. “Trying to hit those knuckleballs and the funny kickoffs maybe affected the field goals a little bit. I think halfway through the season last year I said, forget the kickoffs — not forget the kickoffs — but I’m just gonna hit a high hang time ball, good location, just focus on the location. I’m not gonna hit a low line-drive knuckleball. And I think that’s helped my field goals because it’s the same foot-to-ball contact. Good foot-to-ball contact on the field goal and just do the same thing on the kickoff rather than having two different swings. So that helped me the second half of the season and I’m sticking with that for training camp and this season.”
Butker’s down year was far from the biggest problem in Kansas City last season, but the Chiefs are hoping for a more consistent Butker this season — and hoping he’s back to making game-winning kicks in big games, after a season in which the Chiefs didn’t win many big games.
An improbable story is playing out on the offensive line at Chiefs training camp.
Kahlil Benson started 12 games at right tackle for Indiana during their run to the national title last year, but went undrafted in April. He earned a roster spot with the Chiefs after a tryout at their rookie minicamp and has impressed enough to take all the first-team reps at right tackle over the last two days of practice.
Pete Sweeney of the Kansas City Star notes that Benson has taken the majority of those reps since camp opened and he’s now got an inside track to join left tackle Josh Simmons as a starter up front.
“I think Kahlil is doing a great job. I think he’s a very physical player. I think he should just add on to that,” Simmons said, via Brett Kennedy of KQTV. “I think you can’t really teach effort. I mean that’s what he’s giving out there, so that’s really all I’m telling him right now is keep doing that effort.”
Jaylon Moore was expected to be the top choice at right tackle in Kansas City this season, but Benson now has momentum and continued success in the preseason could make him one of the league’s unlikeliest starters in Week 1.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid said in June that it would be a good thing for left tackle Josh Simmons to gain weight, as long as it wasn’t “cheeseburger weight.” Two months later, Reid confirmed that Simmons has gained lead weight, not cheeseburger weight.
Reid said at training camp on Wednesday that Simmons is looking good after gaining weight in the last couple months.
“He put on weight in the offseason. He’s been able to maintain it,” Reid said. “I think it’ll help him, not that he couldn’t do it at the other weight, but this gives him a little bit more lead in his pants, and that pays off for you. Over time, it pays off for you during the season.”
The 6-foot-5 Simmons weighed 317 pounds at last year’s Scouting Combine before the Chiefs drafted him in the first round, but he lost a lot of weight during his first year in the NFL and said in June that he got down to around 285, which is probably too skinny for an NFL offensive tackle. He declined to directly answer a reporter’s question about precisely how much he weighs right now, but he said he’s in the range where he and the team want him.
“It’s definitely where it needs to be,” Simmons said of his current weight.
After a rookie season in which he missed more games than he played, the Chiefs need Simmons to be ready to play a full season and protect Patrick Mahomes’ blind side this season. All indications from training camp are that Simmons is physically ready to go.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid is dismissing talk that tight end Travis Kelce showed up to training camp out of shape.
Asked on NFL Network about Kelce’s offseason, which included marrying Taylor Swift, Reid said Kelce is as focused on football as he’s ever been.
“He came back in good shape,” Reid said. “I know everybody’s out there saying he’s got the dad body and all this stuff, but he looks the same to me that he’s always looked, and just playing like crazy. So he’s doing a nice job with everything. He’s focused in and ready to go, and I appreciate that, when you have somebody who’s been here 14 years and wants to be out there every snap. . . he’s going to play and play hard and be aggressive and not be stopped, and that’s contagious.”
Kelce will turn 37 this season, and he’s no longer in his prime. But Reid has no doubt that he’s ready to contribute this season as the Chiefs try to turn things around following a highly disappointing 2025.
