The diagnosis is in. Patrick Mahomes has an official mild high-ankle sprain.

According to NFL reporter Ian Rapoport, Mahomes now has the same “week-to-week” timeline that was given him following the Chiefs’ win over the Browns on Sunday afternoon. He’s just now had tests to make that diagnosis finail.

The Kansas City Chiefs now face a difficult decision. It’s all based upon the subjective nature of the injury itself and complicated by a number of surrounding factors that all contribute to conflicting pressures from both sides.

For the Chiefs, the most important thing is to make sure Patrick Mahomes is healthy for when it counts the most, but there are debates as to what that means.

The Chiefs are in the driver’s seat for the top seed in the AFC at the present time with a two-game lead over the Buffalo Bills. The Bills, however, hold the tie-breaker, so the Chiefs can really only afford to lose a single game before being worried about losing their hold on the top seed in the conference.e

The reason the AFC’s top seed is so important is because it will allow the entire Chiefs team to sit and rest for a week while every other playoff hopeful goes to battle in the Wild Card round. That means the Chiefs would only have to play two games, both at home at Arrowhead, to make it to the Super Bowl instead of playing three games without a break.

Given that Mahomes is injured and looks fatigued overall, it makes sense to want to make it to the finish line with him and others and give the entire team a well-deserved rest.

On the flip side, Mahomes is already hurting and the nature of an ankle sprain is that it can become more severe if not given time to rest and recuperate. The Chiefs are in the midst of playing three games in 11 days—yes, brutal timing for such an injury. They face a short week of practice before hosting the Houston Texans on Saturday and then they have four days before playing at Pittsburgh on Christmas.

To go without Mahomes in those games might cost them the lead they’ve worked so hard to build and yet does that even matter if Mahomes is injured? Herein lies the tension. Of course it won’t help that Mahomes is so competitive that he will be pushing to play to add fuel to that side of the argument,.

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