Patrick Mahomes' helmet cracking actually 'did its job,' claims manufacturer

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes suffered a wardrobe malfunction during his 26-7 win against the Miami Dolphins on Saturday.

The Wild Card game was the fourth-coldest game in NFL history, with temperatures hovering around minus-4 degrees at kickoff. With wind chill, the "real feel" approached -30.

While NFL teams have well-prepared equipment staffs that provide their players with all the protection they need, inclement weather can cause a lot of unforeseen side effects. In the third quarter, Mahomes dashed toward the goal line and was greeted by Dolphins safety DeShon Elliott. In the frigid conditions, the impact caused a polycarbonate shard to break off of Mahomes' helmet, raising concerns about the durability of helmets in extreme cold.

Patrick Mahomes' helmet functioned as intended, says manufacturer

The helmet's manufacturer, VICIS, released a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) confirming that their helmet functioned as intended despite the crack.

"Extreme conditions like those experienced in Saturday evening's NFL playoff game are bound to test the limits of even the highest-performing products. While outer shell damage is not ideal, the ZERO2 helmet did its job of protecting Patrick Mahomes during a head-to-head impact during unprecedented cold temperatures," VICIS said in their statement.

Although the break wasn't the publicity that VICIS was looking for, the helmet manufacturer was confident that their product protected Mahomes during the helmet-to-helmet collision. The helmet design utilizes a deformable outer shell, an absorption layer, and a stiff inner shell. That design approach, VICIS said, is "similar to the crumpe zone of modern cars, effectively absorbing and dispersing impact forces at the point of contact."

The manufacturer added that their helmets are extensively tested in high-impact conditions across a wide range of temperatures. Still, the NFL apparently wants to know more. The league sent Mahomes’s helmet to Biocore, a research lab in Virginia that conducts helmet testing for the NFL. The league wants “analysis to understand what took place,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

Mahomes didn't have any complaints about the cracked helmet. He was more bothered by the secondary helmet. In addition to needed to transfer parts of the old helmet to the new one, Mahomes said the replacement helmet was frozen when it was handed to him, which made the process of getting back into the game slower than necessary.

"We have to talk about where we store the backup because it was frozen," Mahomes said. "So when I tried to put it on ... I couldn't get it on. It didn't look great. We were able to adjust it on the sideline, get it kind of warmed up a bit and get rolling from there."

This isn't the first time the league has been uncertain about how cold temperature can affect the game. After all, they did struggle to under how cold temperature affects football inflation.