Mahomes leaves with knee injury

Kansas City QB goes down vs. Denver

Reigning MVP Patrick Mahomes injured his right knee in a pileup near the goal line before his Kansas City teammates rallied around their fallen superstar for a 30-6 thrashing of Denver Thursday night.

His balky left ankle heavily taped, Mahomes was injured on a quarterback sneak on fourth down with just over nine minutes remaining in the first half.

As medical staff attended to him on the field, it appeared Mahomes’ knee was straightened and popped back into place.

A cart came onto the field, apparently to take Mahomes for treatment. He was instead helped off the field by a couple of trainers.

Mahomes, 24, soon left for the locker room, walking under his own power but with a limp. He was in the X-ray room for only two minutes before the Chiefs ruled him out of the game.

The team did not immediately offer details on the injury. A source said the Chiefs “will not know more until the [MRI] images.”

Backup Matt Moore took over after the Mahomes injury and threw a 57-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill and the Chiefs (5-2) had nine sacks, gave up a seasonlow 71 yards rushing and snapped a two-game skid.

Ravens

Quarterback Lamar Jackson was selected as the FedEx Ground NFL Player of the Week, becoming the first player in the award’s 17-year history to win both the air and ground weekly honors in the same season. Jackson, who received FedEx Air NFL Player of the Week honors after a historic season-opening performance, set a career high with 152 yards rushing on 19 attempts and one touchdown in the Ravens’ 23-17 win against Cincinnati. He’s only the third quarterback in the Super Bowl era to rush for at least 150 yards in a game. Jackson was the first quarterback to be nominated for the rushing honors.

Raiders

Paul Guenther has always been in the corner of Vontaze Burfict, so it wasn’t surprising that the Raiders’ defensive coordinator took the 12-game suspension of his middle linebacker personally. “I think it was a witch hunt from the beginning, quite honestly,” Guenther said. “Somebody in the league didn’t want him playing football, and they got what they wanted.” Burfict was suspended by the NFL after being flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit against Colts tight end Jack Doyle.

49ers

San Francisco (5-0) has continued to roll even though left tackle Joe Staley missed the past three games with a broken fibula and right tackle Mike McGlinchey missed the past game with cartilage damage in his knee. Their replacements, Daniel Brunskill and Justin Skule have helped the 49ers remain undefeated. “The two rookies did a great job stepping in and filling their roles,” quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo said.