Tom Brady Had Strong Rehab Advice for Patrick Mahomes After ACL Surgery

Patrick Mahomes underwent surgery after tearing his ACL on Sunday.

Tom Brady offered advice for Patrick Mahomes after tearing his ACL. / Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images

Patrick Mahomes’s 2025 campaign came to a devastating end on Sunday, as the Chiefs quarterback tore his ACL near the end of their loss to the Chargers. Mahomes was trying to lead the Chiefs to a comeback win and keep their slim playoff hopes alive, but instead saw both his and the Chiefs’ season playing meaningful football come to an end.

Mahomes will miss the remainder of the 2025 season while the Chiefs will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2014. This is the most significant injury Mahomes has faced in his NFL career, and the first that will cause him to miss significant time on the field.

As he prepares to rehabilitate after undergoing surgery on Monday, Tom Brady shared the advice he’d give to Mahomes as he navigates the recovery process.

“The only thing you can do is focus on what’s ahead of you and not look back and just say, ‘OK, this is part of what my career is going to be.’ And a lot of people have gone through it and a lot of people have overcome it,” Brady told host Jim Gray on the Let’s Go! SiriusXM podcast. “You’ve just got to put as much diligence into the rehab process and I always feel like the faster you rehab, the faster you can get back to practicing the sport that you know you love.”

Brady continued: “I think sometimes people will pace themselves. Instead of training mode, they’re in rehab mode. I think you gotta get through rehab mode as fast as possible and then you get back to training mode. But that requires an all-out commitment and it’s the same commitment that the great professional athletes make to be great at their profession. When you go through the rehab process, you need that same level of focus and determination.”

Mahomes’s ACL tear came at an eerily similar time to Brady’s. Like Brady, Mahomes suffered the injury in the ninth year of his career, after already winning three Super Bowls. Brady notably tore his ACL in Week 1 while Mahomes his in Week 15. While the injury crushingly ended both players’s seasons prematurely, Brady’s did not stop him from seeing success afterward. Brady went on to play for 15 more years, win four more Super Bowls and two more NFL MVP awards. Mahomes will look to mimic that path when he returns from injury.

“It’s a tough injury, but I know one thing about Patrick,” Brady said. “He’s very tough, he’s very resilient, he’s going to work extremely hard to get back.”

---

FREE NEWSLETTER. SI BTN Newsletter. Start off your day with SI:CYMI. dark

More NFL on Sports Illustrated

feed