The 2025-26 NFL season has gone from bad to worse for the Kansas City Chiefs, as the Super Bowl runner-ups were eliminated from the playoffs. Soon after, the Chiefs were left without star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who was ruled out for the season after suffering an ACL injury. But this wasn’t it, as Mahomes’ replacement, Gardner Minshew, also suffered a knee injury in his first start in Week 16. However, this injury crisis has created a special moment for third-string quarterback Chris Oladokun.

With Minshew going out against the Tennessee Titans, Oladokun got his first taste of the NFL action, making him the first player of African descent to play as a quarterback in the regular season. The NFL highlighted this historic moment by sharing a social media post about the 28-year-old shot caller and his performance against the Titans.

Chris Oladokun, signed to the roster from the practice squad, took over the QB role early in the second quarter and finished the game. The 28-year-old recorded 11 of 16 for 111 yards and drove the Chiefs to three field goals by Harrison Butker. With this performance, Oladokun finished with a passer rating of 88.3.

Looking at Oladokun’s lineage, Chris is the son of Henry Oladokun and Jennifer Carter, who come from different cultural backgrounds. While Carter is an American, Henry Oladokun hails from Nigeria, giving Chris his African roots. Alongside the 28-year-old quarterback, there’s another NFL player in the Oladokun family: Chris’s younger brother, Jordan Oladokun, who plays as a defensive back for the Los Angeles Chargers.

Alongside Jordan and Chris, the NFL has about 138 players of African descent currently playing in the league. The trend started in 1970 when Howard Simon Mwikuta, a football player from Zambia, was part of the Dallas Cowboys as a placekicker. Since then, the NFL has had some great players hailing from Africa, like Ndamukong Suh and Christian Emeka Okoye, among others, who dominated the league.

However, despite his solid performance against the Titans, the starting spot isn’t guaranteed for Chris Oladokun, as the Kansas City Chiefs picked up another quarterback as a replacement for Gardner Minshew.

The Chiefs sign former Buffalo Bills quarterback as Minshew replacement

With the Kansas City Chiefs dealing with a major quarterback crisis, the Super Bowl 2025 runner-ups have enlisted the services of Shane Buechele from the Buffalo Bills’ practice squad. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the development.

“With Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew injuring their knees in back-to-back weeks, the Chiefs are signing QB Shane Buechele off the Bills’ practice squad, per source,” Schefter reported. “Buechele spent the 2021–22 seasons with the Chiefs. He needs to pass a physical, but he is headed to Kansas City.”

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Buechele was a former college football star at SMU, where he threw for 7024 yards and recorded 57 touchdowns in two years after transferring from the Texas Longhorns. Then, after going undrafted in the 2021 NFL draft, the 27-year-old was picked up by the Chiefs for their practice squad.

After spending the 2021 season on the inactive list, he was named the backup for Patrick Mahomes for the 2022 season, where the Chiefs won the Super Bowl. Then, in 2023, after being waived by Kansas, Shane Buechele joined the Buffalo Bills, where he spent the next two years.

Now with the Denver Broncos next on the schedule, head coach Andy Reid will have an interesting decision to make between Shane Buechele and Chris Oladokun, as the Chiefs will hope to finish their disappointing season on a positive note.