By the end of the NFL season, conspiracies were flying. Everyone seemed to have an opinion about the season being scripted, the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift romance, and even the upcoming presidential campaign.
Those conspiracies rose all the way to CNN this week when Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes was asked to respond to them by news anchor Abby Phillip.
Speaking with Phillip from Disneyland where he led the parade on Monday, Mahomes refused to engage with the silliness.
CNN's Abby Phillip asks Patrick Mahomes to comment on the conspiracies that his Super Bowl victory was rigged to benefit Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/aiVkybUFAF
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 13, 2024
“It’s been wild to see,” Mahomes said. “I try to focus in on football as much as possible, but there’s always some conspiracy theories out there. I just try to enjoy football, my family and I kind of stay off social media as much as possible.”
Mahomes is a media pro by now. But it is fairly remarkable that a CNN anchor felt the debates over the nature of Swift’s involvement with Kelce and how the NFL may have plotted its results rose to the level of Phillip asking Mahomes about them.
You can question Phillip’s judgment here to bother the star athlete with internet nonsense. It’s hard to be too critical, though, when in 2024 these types of stories are all over.
GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy argued the deep state wanted Kansas City to win in order to get Biden an endorsement from Kelce and Swift. The “NFL is scripted” conspiracy has lingered for years now, including this year’s discussion around the colors in the Super Bowl logo.
It may sound absurd if you’re not fluent in internet, but many people cling onto these ideas. And the Biden administration chimed in with a joke featuring the “Dark Brandon” meme, intimating that all was going according to the president’s plans.
Just like we drew it up. pic.twitter.com/9NBvc5nVZE
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 12, 2024
So there was Mahomes, in “the happiest place on Earth,” responding to the lunacy in an interview on CNN.
[Mediaite]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.