“I Am Iron Man”: Will the Kansas City Chiefs Have a Phase 2?

By Ha Kung Wong

Twitter/X: @FBGarbageTime

I’m a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, also known as the MCU.  There, everyone knows now.

And if you’re also a fan, you know that the MCU comes in “Phases” where some epic story extends through multiple films for multiple years until some huge conclusion, typically with something happening that you don’t expect.  For instance, like the end of “Phase 3” where (SPOILER ALERT…but honestly, if you haven’t seen “Avengers: Endgame” yet that’s on you, it’s been 6 years for goodness’ sake!) the universe is saved but Iron Man dies.  And even if I spoiled that for you, watch it anyway, there are plenty more surprises, trust me.

I couldn’t help but think of the MCU when the Kansas City Chiefs were eliminated from playoff contention in Week 15, the first time since 2014, which was so long ago that MCU Phase 3 hadn’t even started yet.  The Chiefs have been dominant for so many years that half the Super Bowls since 2015 had the Chiefs on the field.  They managed to win 3 of them and after that people started comparing Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. Although 6 Super Bowl rings is a long way from 3, people were talking like it was just a matter of time before Mahomes and the Chiefs would catch up. And as recently as a month ago, they were still saying those things.

Unfortunately for the Chiefs, not only were they eliminated from playoff contention in Week 15, but in the Chiefs final drive of the game, the unthinkable happened.  Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback that was meant to bring them to a Patriots-style dynasty tore his ACL and is now out for a minimum of 9 months.

Rick Burkholder, Chiefs Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance, said the ballpark timeline for the Patrick Mahomes type of injury is 9 months, but it could be a month or two less or a month or two longer.

— Sam McDowell (@SamMcDowell11) December 17, 2025

Theoretically, it’s possible for Mahomes to stay ahead of schedule and make it back early next season, but there’s no guarantee that’s going to happen since a typical return from an ACL tear to football activity can take as long as 12 months.  And if that happens, it’ll almost be the end of the 2026 season before Mahomes makes it back to the field.  So came the end of the Kansas City Chiefs “Phase 1”.  The question is, what are the chances that there’s a “Phase 2” for the Chiefs?

The 2026 Season Without Patrick Mahomes

So, let’s take the worst-case scenario for the Chiefs, and that’s the 2026 regular season without Patrick Mahomes.

The current 2025 offensive depth chart, according to the Kansas City Chiefs website, is as follows:

Of those on the depth chart, we already know that Mahomes and Wanya Morris are on IR.  Hollywood Brown, Trey Smith and Jawaan Taylor are all out with injuries and several more are questionable.  It doesn’t necessarily mean anything for next season, but there’s clearly some room for depth and there’s a lot of questions regarding who will be back to start in 2026.

Travis Kelce, Tyquan Thornton, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Hollywood Brown, Isiah Pacheco, Kareem Hunt, Elijah Mitchell and Gardner Minshew are all unrestricted free agents in 2026, and Mike Caliendo will be a restricted free agent.  If you cross out all those free agents plus take into account injuries, you basically have Rashee Rice on a blank piece of paper left.

You can imagine that Kelce is unlikely to return without Mahomes.  I’m sure he doesn’t want to end his career on a down note, but Mahomes had to carry most of the team on his shoulders this season, using his legs to average 30.1 rush yards per game, 50% more rush yards on average than across the rest of his career.  Part of the problem was a mostly dysfunctional ground game and the lack of a true number one receiver, at least for the first 6 weeks of the season while Rice waited out his suspension.  And unfortunately, all the plans for Xavier Worthy to take a bigger role got derailed by multiple injuries, including from Week 1 when Kelce essentially trucked him in the open field.  All this extra scrambling by the Mahomes trying to Superman his team to the playoffs on his own might be part of the reason why he ultimately found himself with a torn ACL.  And yes, I realized I just made a DC comics reference in the same article that was based on a Marvel comics reference.  I’m crazy that way sometimes, but let’s get back to it.

Without Mahomes, the current depth chart has no chance.  I like Gardner Minshew and his Uncle Rico gig as much as the next guy, but he’s not going to be able to replace Mahomes.  And along with Kelce being gone, would it be terribly surprising if by the start of the 2026 regular season, at least 3 or 4 of Thornton, Brown, Smith-Schuster, Pacheco, Hunt and Mitchell were also gone to another team?  And let’s not even get started with the defense, that will have 10 free agents in 2026 including at least 3 starters.

How the Chiefs Get to Phase 2

It’s clearly not going to be one thing here to get to the Chiefs “Endgame”, but there are some priorities they should focus on.

• Bridge Quarterback

Even if Mahomes gets back in the 9-month time frame and is ready to start early in the 2026 season, the Chiefs will need a solid plan B bridge quarterback in case Mahomes needs more time to get up to speed.  The problem is that there aren’t a lot of great choices among projected 2026 free agent quarterbacks:

If I had to choose, Joe Flacco seems like a reasonable choice.  He’s made a living lately of making franchises competitive while their starting quarterbacks either get up to speed or get back from injury.  Just check out what he was able to do for the Browns, Colts and Bengals over the last 3 seasons.