KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes said his injured ankle “should be in a better place” heading into the Kansas City Chiefs’ Christmas Day game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“We haven’t done a ton as far as getting out there on the practice field,” Mahomes said before Monday’s practice, the most intense of the short workweek. “We’ve done a walk-through, actually two walk-throughs now, and I feel like I can move around and do what I need to do and now we’ll get to get to a little bit faster-paced practice and see where I’m truly at. But I thought, all in all, I came out pretty well.
“Obviously the body’s going to be sore just with a short week and everything like that, but I think the ankle should be in a better place. We’ll see in practice [Monday], but as far as how I felt after this game compared to the one before, I’m definitely in a lot better place.”
Six days after suffering a high ankle sprain against the Cleveland Browns, Mahomes completed 28-of-41 passes for 260 yards and a touchdown in Saturday’s 27-19 win over the Houston Texans. He also ran for 33 yards and scored the game’s first touchdown on a 15-yard run.
Mahomes said he was excited when the schedule was released last spring to learn the Chiefs had a second consecutive Christmas Day game, “until I realized it was on Wednesday.”
He said the Chiefs were eager to put on a better show on Christmas than they did last season, when they suffered “a pretty embarrassing loss” to the Las Vegas Raiders at Arrowhead Stadium.
“It sparked us to win the Super Bowl, so it ended up working out, but you want to make sure that you go out there and put up a better performance for everybody to see,” Mahomes said.
“It is really cool playing the first Netflix game, playing on Christmas Day in front of the whole nation. It’s an honor, and so we will go out there trying to do what we can to not have the same experience we had last Christmas.”
By beating the Steelers, the Chiefs would clinch the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed, which carries a first-round postseason bye and home-field advantage for any games they would play before Super Bowl LIX.
“You want to get that 1 seed to get that bye, so that you’re basically winning a playoff game by getting the 1 seed,” Mahomes said. “You get that, and you’ll have home field advantage as well at Arrowhead, which we feel like is a huge advantage for us.
“You can’t put all your attention to it. All you can do is go out there and play football and know that we’re going to play a great football team and it’s going to take our best football to win.”
