Patrick Mahomes Opens Up About Impact of Losing Orlando Brown Jr. to Bengals

The Chiefs quarterback addressed the major departure for the offense.

It’s always hard to keep a Super Bowl-winning team completely intact. The Chiefs know this well, winning championships to end the 2019 and ’22 seasons. 

Among those impactful losses this offseason, after Kansas City captured Super Bowl LVII, is offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. The close friend of Patrick Mahomes, who spent the last two seasons protecting the star quarterback, left in free agency and signed with the Bengals, one of the Chiefs’ AFC rivals in recent seasons. 

When asked about Brown’s departure, Mahomes admitted that it was “tough,” but confirmed that the two remain friends off the field even though he’ll be protecting Joe Burrow in 2023.

“Yeah, it’s tough,” Mahomes said Wednesday, via ProFootballTalk. “I still talk to Orlando. We had a friendship off the field just as much as on the field. You understand how great of a player he is. He makes Cincinnati an even better football team so that stinks for us but at the same time I’m happy for him that he got to a good place where he was able to get a good contract that he deserved and everything like that.

“We’ll still have that friendship, but he’s a competitor like me, so we’re going to be wanting to be able to brag about who wins that football game.”

Brown signed a four-year deal with Cincinnati worth $64 million. To fill his spot, Kansas City added former Buccaneers tackle Donovan Smith on a one-year, $9 million deal.