Patrick Mahomes has made a remarkable recovery from a torn ACL and LCL in his left knee. The Chiefs quarterback injured his knee in a Dec. 14 game and underwent surgery the following day.
A little over seven months later, he is cleared for training camp.
Mahomes said he consulted with several players who went through a similar rehab.
“I talked to Tom [Brady] early in the process because he had the same injury, a very similar injury that I had,” Mahomes said Friday, via Pete Sweeney of the Kansas City Star.
Brady tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee during the season opener in 2008 before winning Comeback Player of the Year in 2009.
“It’s just talking to guys that have been through this process and just saying how you have to stay on top of it,” Mahomes said. “It’s a long process. I remember sitting on the table and watching us play those last few games and how much it hurt me, but I knew that if I continued to work, I could be at this spot where I get cleared for practice. Now I’m just trying to get to that spot where I’m cleared to play in the regular season on that first week.”
Mahomes also talked to former Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu and veteran tight end Zach Ertz. Mathieu tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee in 2013 and had another ACL tear in 2015, and Ertz tore his ACL a week before Mahomes’ injury.
His conversations with Ertz turned into a rehab competition.
“We kind of had like competitions on where we were at, and where we were rehabbing,” Mahomes said of Ertz. “It would start off as how much deadlift — what you’re deadlifting, where you’re at — and then [we would] send little videos. He’s jumping and doing certain acceleration things, and I’m sending him next week doing cutting and stuff like that.
“It keeps the competition going because it’s a long process and you feel like sometimes you’re lonely because you’re doing stuff by yourself, and you’re just competing against yourself, so it gave me someone else that I can compete with to push my competitive drive.”
Former Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden and former Buccaneers cornerback Ronde Barber will be sharing a booth for a preseason game next month.
The Buccaneers announced that Gruden and Barber will be on the call for their August 22 home game against the Chiefs.
Gruden has said he wants to be a play-by-play announcer, and now he will be, at least for one preseason game, for the franchise he coached to a Super Bowl XXXVII victory after the 2002 season. Barber was a Hall of Fame player on that team.
Gruden coached the Buccaneers from 2002 to 2008 and had two stints as head coach of the Raiders, from 1998 to 2001 and from 2018 to 2021. His second stint ended when he was pressured into resigning over language he had used in emails he sent while working as a broadcaster for ESPN. Gruden is suing the NFL for leaking those emails to the media.
The Buccaneers removed Gruden from their Ring of Honor when those emails surfaced in 2021, but reinstated him to the Ring of Honor last year. And now the team has hired Gruden to be part of its preseason broadcasts.
The Buccaneers will break out their original uniforms again this season.
The team wore their 1976 duds twice in 2025 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the franchise and initially said that there were no plans to continue wearing them in the future, but they announced a new plan on Wednesday. They will don the throwback white jerseys and helmets with their original Buccaneer logo against the Chargers at home in Week 13.
Both games that featured the white-on-white uniforms ended with Bucs wins in 2025. They beat the Jets 29-27 in Week 3 and topped the Seahawks 38-35 in Week 5. The Seahawks also wore their original 1976 uniforms for that game.
The team has not announced any future plans to wear the throwbacks, but another win against the Chargers probably wouldn’t hurt the chances that we’ll be seeing them again.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield has set a deadline. His team is going to try to comply.
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated reported earlier this week that the Bucs are ready to “dive in” to negotiations with Mayfield, whose three-year, $100 million deal expires after the 2026 season.
He’s technically due to make $27.5 million this year, with available incentives. Past tinkering with his cash flow has pushed his total compensation for 2026 to $40 million.
The most important figure is the cap number: $39.975 million. By rule, that pushes his 2027 franchise tag to at least $47.97 million, a 20-percent increase over the cap charge in the last year of the contract.
The challenge continues to be pegging the right value, given that the range for veteran starting quarterbacks spans low in the $20 millions to the mid-$60 millions. The real question may be whether Mayfield’s new-money APY begins with a “4" or a “5".
The market is the market. But some teams (like the Dolphins in 2024) have done market-level deals they quickly came to regret.
Whatever happens, bet on this — Mayfield will be willing to bet on himself, if necessary. During the latest season of Quarterback on Netflix, Mayfield revisits his decision to withdraw from Texas Tech after Kliff Kingsbury made Davis Webb the starter and enroll at Oklahoma without a spot on the football team.
Mayfield has already made the ultimate roll of the dice on himself. And look at how it turned out — Heisman Trophy winner, No. 1 overall pick, and career earnings (through 2026) of more than $130 million.
Mayfield’s history makes it clear that he won’t think twice about passing on a good-not-great offer from the Bucs and take his chances on something better if he becomes a free agent in March.
The NFL Players Association released its annual Rising Stars list on Tuesday and the first overall pick of this year’s draft is one of the players at the top.
Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza is No. 1 on the list of the 10 rookies that the NFLPA projects to be future members of the Top 50 list of licensed player product sales. There is also a list of 10 players with NFL experience who have not been on the Top 50 and it is topped by Saints quarterback Tyler Shough.
Mendoza is followed on the list by Cowboys safety Caleb Downs, Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love, Titans wide receiver Carnell Tate, Eagles wide receiver Makai Lemon, Commanders linebacker Sonny Styles, Saints wide receiver Jordyn Tyson, Giants linebacker Arvell Reese, Ravens wide receiver Ja’Kobi Lane, and Buccaneers edge rusher Rueben Bain.
The list of veteran players also includes Bears tight end Colston Loveland, Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker, Panthers wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, Cardinals tight end Trey McBride, Dolphins running back De’Von Achane, Bills running back James Cook, and Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez.
