How cold is it in Kansas City? Even the helmets aren’t safe.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes found that out on a broken play, quite literally, during the third quarter of the Chiefs’ frigid wild-card game against the Miami Dolphins.
As the two teams braved sub-zero temperatures and dangerously low wind chills, Patrick Mahomes guided the Chiefs deep into Dolphins’ territory with a 16-7 left. On a second-down play with 9:25 left in the third quarter, Mahomes escaped the pocket and scrambled toward the end zone.
Dolphins safety DeShon Elliott met Mahomes at the 3-yard line and came in helmet first. The helmet-to-helmet collision was hard enough to shatter Patrick Mahomes’ helmet. A piece of the helmet flew off at impact, an obvious result of the temperature being minus-6, with a wind chill of minus-27 at the time of the play.
Despite the headfirst collision, the officials didn’t call a penalty on the play, a surprise considering the shattered helmet was an obvious result of a helmet-to-helmet impact. Mahomes stayed in the game for two more plays with a gaping hole in the front of his helmet before the officials made him swap it out on the sidelines for a new helmet.
X was abuzz with activity about Mahomes’ shattered helmet in one of the coldest NFL games ever.
Three plays after Mahomes’ helmet-shattering run, the Chiefs went up 19-7 on Harrison Butker’s 21-yard field goal.