What happened to Patrick Mahomes' helmet? Chiefs star escapes major scare after taking brutal hit vs Dolphins

In Saturday night's Wild Card game at Geha Field in Arrowhead Stadium against the Miami Dolphins, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes broke loose with an ambitious run in the third quarter. DeShon Elliott, a safety for the Dolphins, hit the quarterback short of the goal line. After the hit, Mahomes' helmet actually broke. Yes, you read that right. The helmet literally broke.

The material of the helmet seemed to have split due to extreme cold, leaving a large hole to the left part. Even regular NFL fans do not often see something like this.

When Mahomes' helmet broke, the stadium's temperature was minus five degrees. Accuweather reports that it feels like -15 outside right now.

Even though we alalready know that the game is being played in below-freezing temps, it's still inexplicable if that kind of breakage would have occurred in regular playing conditions.

Controversy ensued after Patrick Mahomes broke his helmet

The plus side for quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs is that every NFL quarterback carries a second helmet in the event that something like this ever occurs. To continue playing the game, the quarterback merely needed to go fetch his second helmet. Nevertheless, that was not without debate of its own.

The game was delayed by the officials so that Mahomes could get his helmet changed, rather than making the Chiefs take a timeout. Terry McAulay, an NBC expert on rules, stated that they should have made Mahomes leave the field for the sideline or call a timeout before he could take the following snap.

McAulay declared:

"They stopped the clock, changed the equipment, and he really should have to leave or they take a time-out."

The reasons Mahomes was not evaluated for a concussion following the helmet incident and the lack of a flag for helmet-to-helmet collision also generated some debate.

Mahomes played on as if nothing had occurred, showing no signs of injury from the collision. But after the play, there were undoubtedly a lot of unanswered questions among the fans.