Patrick Mahomes reacts to Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending injury

A few minutes into Week 1’s edition of “Monday Night Football,” the NFL world came to a halt as New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers left the game with a leg injury.

On Tuesday, the league’s worst fears were realized when the 18-year veteran — who is a near-lock to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection — was confirmed to have suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon that will end his season.

Following the injury, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes posted a message of support to his X account.

The two quarterbacks have never faced one another in a game. During Rodgers’ legendary career with the Green Bay Packers, two scheduled meetings were thwarted. In 2018, Mahomes missed the Chiefs’ Week 8 game against the Packers while recovering from a knee injury. Rodgers missed a second opportunity after testing positive for COVID in 2021.

Speaking before practice on Wednesday, Mahomes wished his colleague well — and made it clear that a face-off between himself and Rodgers should be far from anyone’s mind.

Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

“I have no idea,” Mahomes said of the possibility he might ever play against Rodgers. “Obviously, it sucks for not only him and his team, but for the entire league because he’s such a great player. [He’s] someone that a lot of guys have looked up to throughout their entire career. You want to play teams at their best — but that’s a long way down the road.

“I’m just praying for him that he’s able to heal himself, rehab, and hopefully [be] back again next year — and then we’ll maybe get the opportunity [to play each other].”

Had Rodgers remained healthy, the two quarterbacks would have met each other when the Jets hosted the Chiefs on October 1. Unless the two teams have the same division finish in 2023 — or meet in the postseason — they will not play each other in 2024. The AFC West won’t play the AFC East again until the 2026 season.

In the fallout from one of the league’s most recognizable stars suffering a devastating injury on an artificial playing field, there are renewed calls for all venues to use a natural grass playing surface. The NFL Players’ Association’s executive director Lloyd Howell released a statement in favor of banning artificial turf on Wednesday.

Mahomes appears to be firmly in Howell’s camp.

“I think it’s pretty simple,” stated the reigning league MVP. “The numbers say that grass is healthier for the players, so I want to play on the best surface that will keep me healthy.”

The face of the league acknowledges, however, that he has no control over what various stadiums use.

“You can only do so much,” Mahomes explained. “It’s the playing surface, so you just prepare your body to be ready for any type of playing surface that you play on. At the end of the day, you just go out there an execute at a high level. Luckily for us, Arrowhead’s grass, so we play a lot of our games on grass.”

Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid, however, was less willing to take a stand in the grass versus turf debate when he spoke on Wednesday.

“I’ll probably get in trouble saying something,” claimed the head coach, “so I’m going to just say, ‘Whatever they put out there.’ We’ll go play in the CVS parking lot.”