During the first half of the Super Bowl, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce became frustrated after a Chiefs turnover and screamed at and then bumped head coach Andy Reid on the sideline.
While Kelce has visibly shown his vexation on the sideline in previous instances, what made this particular outburst so shocking was that he directed his indignation at Reid and made physical contact with him.
It was initially stated that Kelce was angry with Reid for taking him out of the game for that individual play, but we don’t know for sure what the star pass-catcher actually said to the future Hall-of-Fame coach.
And we probably never will, even though Kelce was mic’d up for the game.
According to Ryan Glasspiegel of The New York Post, the NFL has buried the audio of the incident between Kelce and Reid, and it is unlikely to ever be unearthed.
Glasspiegel says a couple of high-level sources stated that the Chiefs have blocked the audio from being released, with one of them saying that Reid himself made the call.
Kelce ended up logging nine catches for 93 yards in the Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime win, but at the time of his tantrum, he was an afterthought in Kansas City’s offense as the Chiefs struggled to get anything going.
Obviously, winning cures all ills, so the fact that Kansas City ended up winning the game certainly threw a blanket over the Kelce-Reid lowlight. Kind of.
Kelce still faced some criticisms for his actions, and he came out on his New Heights podcast and apologized for said actions later that week.
Chances are, the dustup will not affect the relationship between Kelce and Reid moving forward. After all, it was an isolated moment within the heat of a Super Bowl, and Kelce and Reid have now won three championships together.
But it doesn’t make the clip of Travis Kelce nearly knocking over 65-year-old Andy Reid any less disconcerting.