Patrick Mahomes bashes NFL for making Chiefs play on Christmas Day
The NFL scheduled a rare slate of Wednesday games this season to ensure it will have games played on Christmas Day, and Patrick Mahomes is not happy about it.
The Kansas City Chiefs are one of four teams that will have to spend their Christmas at work with a matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Baltimore Ravens will play the Houston Texans later that night. That will also mean Mahomes and his teammates will play three games in 11 days. They play the Cleveland Browns Dec. 15 and the Houston Texans Dec. 21.
Last year, the Chiefs faced the Las Vegas Raiders in a Christmas Day game, but that game was on a Monday.
The Chiefs will have less time than usual to prepare for both the Texans and Steelers games. The Houston matchup will be played on a Saturday, and the Steelers game is on a Monday.
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Mahomes, who already had to give up his holiday for a football game, agonized over the idea of playing all those games in that short amount of time.
"It’s not a good feeling," Mahomes told reporters Wednesday. "You never want to play this amount of games in this short of time. It’s not great for your body. But, at the end of the day, it’s your job, your profession. You have to come to work and do it."
Mahomes was asked whether he has ever had three games in such a short span.
"I haven’t in football," he replied.
"All you can do is focus on the game. The practice you have that day," Mahomes added. "I try to prepare my body all year long for this stretch. That’s tailoring my workouts, tailoring how you practice and prepare.
"And the coaches do a great job of taking care of us on the practice field. We practice as hard as anybody, but they know how to dial it back when needed."
On top of a strenuous workload, Mahomes and his family will not be able to spend Christmas at home this year for the second year in a row. Mahomes and wife Brittany are both Christians.
"My Christian faith plays a role in everything that I do," he told reporters before the Super Bowl in February 2023. "I always ask God to lead me in the right direction and let me be who I am for His name. So, it has a role in everything that I do. Obviously, we’ll be on that huge stage in the Super Bowl that He’s given me, and I want to make sure I’m glorifying Him while I do it.
"I feel like I’ve grown in my faith these last few years, and I think that’s given me more sense of who I am and why I play the game. It just kind of relieves the pressure of playing a football game because I know that I’m on that football field to glorify Him before everything. So, it’s not about winning or losing. It's about going out there and being the best that I can in His name."
Brittany is pregnant with their third child.
The NFL has played on Wednesday in the past. The most recent Wednesday game was played in 2020, when the Steelers and Ravens had their game pushed back because of a COVID-19 outbreak.
In 2012, the NFL’s opener between the Giants and Cowboys was played on a Wednesday so the TV networks could broadcast Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.
But before those games, the NFL had not had a Wednesday game since the Lions and Rams played Sept. 22, 1948.
"It’s a unique situation. You just have to manage it," said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, whose team will have played on every day of the week but Tuesday this season. "It is what it is. You make the best of it."
It’s not as if the games involved in the Christmas stretch are throwaways, either. Each has significant playoff ramifications.
The Chiefs have already clinched the AFC West, but they are trying to fend off Buffalo and Pittsburgh for the No. 1 seed and a first-round playoff bye. The Steelers are two games ahead of the Ravens in the AFC North heading into this weekend and could clinch a playoff berth if things fall their way. The Texans are two games up on the Colts in the AFC South.
"The main thing is you get guys ready for the game. Give them a chance to get ready for the game," Reid said. "They’re going to do whatever you present to them. You try to help them out with that. Right now we have a normal week right here. We have to take care of business here."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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