‘Bring new ideas’: Mahomes shares what he wants in potential new offensive coordinator

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - With Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy’s contract set to expire and him interviewing for head coaching gigs around the league, the Chiefs could be in the market for a new hire at the position.

Thursday, as quarterback Patrick Mahomes spoke to reporters for the first time since his torn ACL, the 30-year-old discussed what went wrong for the Chiefs in 2025 and what he’s looking for in a potential new hire.

“There’s names out there but especially with how many vacancies there are at the head coaching position, you have to kind of let that all play out and see how you build your staff,” Mahomes said. “I know Coach (Andy) Reid, if Coach Nags is able to get another job -- a head coaching job -- he’ll have a good plan of who he wants to bring in.”

Eight NFL head coaching vacancies remain open after the New York Giants were reported to have agreed to a deal with recently-fired Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, including each of the four teams that Nagy has interviewed with.

Mahomes’ college head coach, Kliff Kingsbury, recently parted ways with the Washington Commanders as their offensive coordinator and could be a candidate in Kansas City if the Chiefs bring in a new coordinator.

While Mahomes didn’t discuss Kingsbury as a candidate on Thursday, he did mention fresh ideas as an important attribute for whoever is brought into the Chiefs facility.

“For me, I just want someone that loves football, that cares about football and wants to give everything that they can to win,” Mahomes said, “to hold people accountable and bring new ideas every single day. I think that’s what we have to continue to do if you want to continue to be great in this league.”

This season was the first year in which the Chiefs missed the playoffs while Mahomes has been the starting quarterback and Kansas City will pick ninth overall in the 2026 NFL Draft.

Kansas City’s offense struggled, becoming particularly unproductive without Mahomes during the final weeks to finish 21st in the league in points per game en route to a 6-11 record.

“You have to continue to evolve and get better and better and that’s something that we’re going to try to do here. I want to get back to that winning culture of being accountable to each other and going out and playing great football every single day, practice or game.”

Mahomes pointed to red zone turnovers of his own and lack of consistency as some of the biggest reasons for the Chiefs struggles in 2025.

“We had stretches in games where we played good,” Mahomes said, “and we had stretches in the season where we played really good, but we gotta be better and that starts with me and then has to feed throughout the entire offense.

“Guys are motivated, coaches, players, we’re all motivated to be better next year. It sucks watching these (playoff) games. I want to be out there playing football.”