Live Bet Sunday | August 9, 2026 | Hour 5

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Live Bet Sunday on VSin, the Sports Betting Network.

**Scott Seidenberg** (0:08)
Back here on Live Bet Sunday, I'm Scott Seidenberg with you on VSin, the Sports Betting Network. Always on Twitter at Scott's on air and at VSin live monitoring the late action here in Major League Baseball. Coming up, we will get you a preview of Sunday night baseball, the Astros versus the Padres. But the NFL preseason is upon us. We had the Hall of Fame game last Thursday, which it was just so great watching real football on my television. Then Mike Tirico calling it like it was the Super Bowl just made me even more excited about watching the end of that game in particular. But we have week one of the preseason coming up this Thursday. The NFL preseason is going to be an interesting time for a lot of teams, especially teams that are dealing with injuries and players coming back from injuries, like the Kansas City Chiefs and quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Let's talk more about the Chiefs as we welcome in. Jesse Newell, covering the Chiefs for the Athletic here on the Progressive Guest Line. Jesse, thanks so much for giving us a couple of minutes. And Andy Reed came out and said, we're not going to see Mahomes in week one of the preseason. But the question that I think a lot of football fans have, and I have, is will we see Mahomes at all here during the NFL preseason?

**Jesse Newell** (1:17)
Yeah, I think the answer is no with that. And what's interesting about that is that the Chiefs have sort of bucked the trend in recent years. They like getting Patrick Mahomes some snaps. And he has been out there, as other teams have turned it away from playing their star QBs, superstar QBs in Mahomes' case. But this one, I think, is a little bit different with the knee and how they've been trying to protect him. And I think what's fascinating about that is even Patrick, he's a competitor, he wants to be out there. He's actually said in past years, he likes going to the preseason just to get hit once, just to remember what it feels like, kind of feel like you're back in the football again. And then he's ready for the regular season. But usually, and I've covered the Chief for five years now, usually Andy Reid holds his cards pretty close to the vest here. So when he was asked about the first preseason game and said, probably not, and then went out of his way to say, and the whole preseason, the percentages probably lean to no as well.
I take that as probably he's not gonna play this preseason. I think that's the way the Chiefs are leaning. Again, you understand why they would do that, especially coming off as an injury as quickly as Patrick Mahomes has healed. But yeah, this is gonna be different for them. And it will be fascinating to watch because this is not the way they normally handle this sort of situation.

**Scott Seidenberg** (2:25)
To that extent though, and I love Mahomes saying that, like he wants to get hit because I'm somebody that I'm in that camp. I believe that. I think the way to get injured in the sport of football is to avoid getting injured. Like I think football players need to play football. There's a difference between getting in shape and getting in football shape. So I get it, you want to protect him. You do not want him to re aggravate the injury that he's coming back faster than pretty much anybody's come back from the surgery that he had. But I still think he needs to play. And if he doesn't play in the preseason, is there a reason, Jesse, to be cautious or to be concerned about his performance in week one against the Broncos?
Yeah.

**Jesse Newell** (3:07)
Again, if you look historically, and this didn't happen for the Chiefs last year compared to others, maybe we can throw some caveats in if you want to. If our first week was in Brazil against the Chargers, and that's a different sort of game than they normally start off with. Typically, Andy Reid, where he's dominated with the Chiefs, is they get off to a quick start. I know they've historically said, okay, they go off to training camp, they make it very tough. We just got off yesterday one of those really difficult training camp sessions where there are a couple of camp fights, six days in a row, the heat and humidity of St. Joseph, Missouri.
They want to prepare themselves early for the week one and to be ready to hit the ground running. I think they've done that in the NFL in recent years, and it's been part of their success. But yeah, with Mahomes, it's just a different animal, because if you think back, he had surgery in mid-December of last year. Typically, typically, these ACL injuries, it takes nine to 12 months. He's back on the practice field, was back on the practice field, no TAs, five or six months later doing non-contact stuff. Now he's back fully cleared in 11 on 11, seven months later, and we're barely now reaching eight. So you understand the consciousness with this particular injury, just because Mahomes has beaten his timeline so squarely. But yeah, should there be concern for week one based off of potentially not getting that same sort of rhythm and Mahomes not having the same ramp up as he normally does for the preseason? And the one that he prefers, he said that he's referred in the past, I could definitely see that as well.