KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Minutes after celebrating their place in NFL historical past, they had been scrambling in terror.
Each outstanding member of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs — Andy Reid and his teaching workers, basic supervisor Brett Veach, quarterback Patrick Mahomes, tight finish Travis Kelce and their teammates — left the stage in entrance of Union Station and headed again into the grand corridor. It was the town’s parade to honor their Tremendous Bowl LVIII victory, the primary NFL group to efficiently defend a championship in virtually twenty years.
Minutes later gunshots sounded; the group and the 1000’s of followers celebrating on an unseasonably heat Valentine’s Day had been plunged into chaos.
The 66-year-old Reid and a trio of gamers — operating again Clyde Edwards-Helaire, proper guard Trey Smith and lengthy snapper James Winchester — had been amongst those that ran towards youngsters through the gunfire and tried to consolation these round them. In keeping with a regulation enforcement supply, granted anonymity for this story as a result of he doesn’t have permission to talk publicly on the taking pictures, at one level police thought there was a shooter inside Union Station, the place Chiefs personnel, coaches, gamers and their households had run for canopy.
“I went to my grandkids and my household, like, The place are they?!” Reid mentioned two weeks after the taking pictures. “Your instincts take over.”
Chaos has damaged out on the finish of the Chiefs Tremendous Bowl parade. Police and army personnel simply took off inside Union Station pic.twitter.com/mqNeodS9r5
— Jacob Meikel (@Jacob_Meikel) February 14, 2024
Edwards-Helaire, who has a fame as one of many Chiefs’ most jovial gamers, had his typical offseason coaching halted a number of instances whereas he handled post-traumatic stress dysfunction, a situation he has grappled with since fatally taking pictures a person trying to rob him in 2018; the parade taking pictures worsened his extreme nervousness.
When the photographs lastly stopped, 22 victims — half of them below the age of 16 — had been wounded and one individual, Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a disc jockey at Kansas Metropolis radio station KKFI and mom of two, was useless. The taking pictures stemmed from a dispute between a number of folks, two of whom had been below the age of 18 once they had been detained by the Kansas Metropolis Police Division.
That horrific scene was how the Chiefs’ offseason started. It barely calmed down over the subsequent six months: a rising star turned embroiled in authorized points stemming from a high-speed crash, a future Corridor of Famer battled time and the scrutiny that comes with relationship the world’s most well-known girl, their kicker thrust himself into the tradition wars and a 25-year-old teammate virtually died on the group’s coaching facility.
Beginning Thursday evening towards the Baltimore Ravens, Chiefs gamers, coaches and entrance workplace members will spend the subsequent 5 months attempting to perform an unprecedented feat: Win a 3rd consecutive Tremendous Bowl. However first, they needed to endure an offseason not like some other.
Rashee Rice’s rented Lamborghini SUV was approaching 120 miles per hour on a Dallas freeway. He was a part of a late-afternoon drag race on a busy stretch of the Central Expressway and, as he tried to weave by means of visitors, he slammed right into a hatchback touring within the left lane, setting off a series response. The hatchback careened into the black Corvette that Rice was racing, sending the Corvette right into a minivan earlier than crashing right into a retaining wall on the opposite aspect of the street. The minivan and a white SUV had been despatched spinning within the heart lane. In the long run, six automobiles had been concerned. Within the rapid aftermath, Rice and 4 of his associates exited the 2 automobiles, made their solution to the breakdown lane and walked away earlier than police arrived, forsaking the crash’s victims, baffled onlookers and two mangled luxurious automobiles.
From Rashee Rice’s legal professional, Royce West: “Rashee is cooperating with native authorities and can take all vital steps to handle this case responsibly.” through @AdamSchefter.@dallaspd was reportedly in search of the Chiefs’ huge receiver following Saturday’s crash. @FOX4 pic.twitter.com/ubD0dBSBJ4
— Peyton Yager (@peytonyager) April 1, 2024
The March 30 crash concerned Teddy Knox, a former SMU teammate of Rice who was the driving force of the black Corvette. Two drivers of different automobiles had been handled on the scene for minor accidents, and two occupants of one other automobile had been taken to the hospital with minor accidents.
On April 11, Rice turned himself in on the Glenn Heights (Texas) Police Division after the Dallas PD issued an arrest warrant. Information confirmed Rice, who was booked and launched on a $40,000 bond, is going through one depend of aggravated assault, one depend of collision involving severe bodily harm and 6 counts of collision involving harm, though a trial date has but to be set. Two crash victims, Irina Gromova and Edvard Petrovskiy, are suing Rice and Knox for greater than $10 million; a trial is about to start subsequent June.
Rice made his first public feedback concerning the crash by means of an Instagram story publish: “I take full duty individually on this matter and can proceed to cooperate with the required authorities. I sincerely apologize to everybody impacted in Saturday’s accident.”
Lower than per week after turning himself in to the police, Rice returned to work, collaborating in each side of the Chiefs’ offseason program. Throughout coaching camp, he declined to share if he had been interviewed by commissioner Roger Goodell or anybody else from the league.
“The primary factor for me is with the ability to be one of the best individual I may be for my group so we are able to all come collectively and dominate,” Rice mentioned in early August. “I’m simply persevering with to encompass myself with the folks I wish to be like and persevering with to encompass myself with people who find themselves going to permit me to develop to change into a greater individual on and off the sphere. I’m going to proceed to develop.”
Brian McCarthy, a league spokesman, mentioned in a information video convention final week that Rice wouldn’t be positioned on the league’s commissioner’s exempt checklist — which permits the league to take away a participant going through felony costs from the taking part in subject and take that disciplinary resolution away from the group — “until there’s a materials change within the case.”
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Since Reid turned their head coach in 2013, the Chiefs have been keen to usher in gamers with a historical past of off-the-field transgressions. That was true of Rice, who was taken off not less than three groups’ draft boards resulting from character issues, in response to league sources, earlier than Kansas Metropolis moved up 9 spots to pick him within the second spherical of the 2023 draft.
A standard false impression is that Reid’s Chiefs make use of a unfastened, fun-all-the-time tradition. In actuality, Reid runs one of the bodily coaching camps within the NFL and so they keep these grueling observe habits all through the season. Reid has realized to micromanage much less, however swap out sleeveless hoodies for Tommy Bahama shirts — and Tom Brady for Mahomes — and you’ve got a corporation that has way more in widespread with the Patriot Method than most outsiders suppose. And much like New England, the profitable encourages gamers to purchase in.
“They belief their infrastructure,” a rival GM mentioned. “(Reid) can deal with absolutely anything and ensure the management is robust to soak up these gamers. … Expertise is a premium, for positive, and determining the place to attract the road can undoubtedly be taxing on the assistants. Invoice (Belichick) was the identical means. It’s all about danger tolerance and at what price.”
Regardless of a troubling offseason, the Chiefs nonetheless have extraordinarily excessive expectations for Rashee Rice. (Emily Curiel / Kansas Metropolis Star / Tribune Information Service / Getty Pictures)
Only a few weeks earlier than the crash, Rice was in Fort Value, Texas, coaching alongside Mahomes and Marquise Brown, the Chiefs’ latest veteran receiver. Mahomes, who spent a portion of his childhood in a Main League Baseball clubhouse, understands the necessity to use his voice to criticize Rice in a fashion that’s not solely punitive.
“There’s going to be punishments and stuff that they’re going to should cope with,” Mahomes mentioned of Rice final month. “However if you’re a man on the group, you’re sort of like an older brother to the man. You wish to convey him up as finest you possibly can.
“Clearly, they know they’ve made errors. They come clean with them. However on the similar time, how are we going to be higher now? How are you going to study from that mistake and never make that very same mistake once more? That’s what you’re doing in each side of life, not simply soccer.”
The Chiefs have a possible celebrity in Rice. As a rookie final season he was the Chiefs’ finest receiver, recording 79 receptions for 938 yards and a team-high seven touchdowns. Primarily based on his on-field efficiency this summer time, the 24-year-old is predicted to not merely construct on that success in 2024 however doubtlessly set up himself as one of many NFL’s elite receivers. The Chiefs have proved, within the brief time period, they will win with out nice receiver play. For the long run, Rice might be the reply to one of many questions looming over the franchise: Who will change into Mahomes’ subsequent go-to goal? In spite of everything, Kelce can not play perpetually.
Kelce was emotional, virtually choking up at one level through the brief social-media video directed towards Chiefs followers. He thanked them for his or her help and reminisced about when he arrived in Kansas Metropolis. It was April 29, the Monday after the NFL Draft, and the tight finish had simply signed a two-year contract extension.
The information was important for 2 causes: It made him the NFL’s highest-paid tight finish for the primary time in his profession; and it was the primary public indication of what Kelce, who can be 35 in October, instructed Reid and Veach earlier than signing the deal: He thinks he has not less than two extra good years left.
Kelce plans to assist the franchise proceed its success for not less than a pair extra seasons whilst his fame on the planet exterior soccer grows exponentially after, final fall, his relationship with pop celebrity Taylor Swift turned public.
“I really like taking part in within the NFL,” Kelce mentioned in June. “This can all the time be my fundamental focus. However exterior of that, soccer ends for everyone, so (I’m) sort of dipping my toes within the water and seeing what (I) like in several areas and totally different profession fields. I believe the offseason is one of the best probability you may get to try to discover that and set your self up for after soccer.”
Kelce spent a lot of the offseason in Los Angeles, his first step towards the appearing profession he plans to pursue after soccer. His first alternative was within the spring; actress/comic Niecy Nash-Betts revealed in early Might that Kelce could be guest-starring alongside her, in an unspecified function, in “Grotesquerie,” an FX horror and drama present. Comic and actor Adam Sandler shared final month that Kelce will play a supporting function within the much-anticipated “Completely satisfied Gilmore 2.” Kelce additionally flew to Europe a number of instances — London, Dublin and plenty of different cities — to attend as lots of Swift’s live shows as doable, constantly shocked on the rising variety of Chiefs jerseys he noticed in every metropolis.
WE HAVE A CLOSE UP NOW pic.twitter.com/BUnSTn5a4k
— line 🌙 (@nessianxx) June 23, 2024
Kelce’s life modified final season when he started relationship Swift. His weekly podcast together with his brother, Jason, “New Heights,” turned one of many medium’s fastest-growing reveals. Travis’s social media followers grew by greater than 400,000. In lower than per week, his No. 87 jersey rose to the highest 5 in NFL gross sales, in response to Fanatics.
Kelce’s life additionally modified in much less fascinating methods. For example, as paparazzi descended on his suburban residence, he realized the arduous means that relationship the world’s most well-known girl requires a gated neighborhood; he moved in November.
In 2023, the Chiefs turned the third group in NFL historical past to play 21 regular- and postseason video games in a single season. Within the first six years of the Mahomes period, the Chiefs performed an unmatched 18 postseason video games, for a complete of 117 video games throughout that span; Kelce performed in all however 4 of them. And but, the Chiefs are usually not nervous about Kelce doubtlessly slowing down. As he adopted Swift’s Eras Tour all over the world this summer time, Kelce introduced a small group of trainers together with him. The world noticed his shock on-stage look as a performer throughout Swift’s late-June present at London’s Wembley Stadium, however few noticed the full-time soccer work he continued to place in whereas abroad. And, European excursions and appearing gigs apart, he didn’t miss a single Chiefs exercise this summer time, obligatory or voluntary.
It won’t be TB12, however these within the Chiefs constructing say Kelce is obsessive about physique upkeep. It’s cliché to insist that your finest gamers are your hardest employees, however even Veach was shocked when, on his means out the door on Monday — after the group’s hardest observe of the week — he noticed his All-Professional tight finish doing band work in an in any other case empty weight room at 9 p.m.
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There’s little question that Kelce nonetheless has each ft within the soccer world, identical to there’s little question that Swift is totally embracing her Chiefs fandom. It did, nonetheless, take everybody concerned a little bit little bit of time to seek out the rhythm to this dance.
For example, Swift made her first look at Arrowhead Stadium final September. The lasting picture of an in any other case forgettable blowout victory over the Chicago Bears: When Kelce caught a 3-yard landing to stretch the result in 41-0, cameras caught Swift leaping, cheering and shouting three phrases: Let’s f—ing go!
Earlier than the Chiefs’ locker room was opened after the sport, gamers had been requested to not focus on Swift with reporters, a request from Kelce that led to awkward interactions between gamers and reporters surrounding one of many recreation’s greatest storylines.
“It’s loopy that somebody was at a soccer recreation, proper?” defensive finish George Karlaftis mentioned, smiling, in response to a query about Swift. “I don’t know what you guys need. I’m completely satisfied for him.”
That day introduced a brand new sort of stress for the Chiefs’ safety operation, which needed to coordinate with Swift’s group for her protected entry into and exit from the stadium. With the sport winding down within the fourth quarter, safety put its unique plan into movement, ushering Swift out to a gathering level with Kelce. Solely, Swift had a distinct thought: She needed to observe the tip of her boyfriend’s recreation. That meant plans needed to change on the fly. In the end, the safety element had Swift wait within the suite after the sport till Kelce was prepared to fulfill her there. The couple later exited Arrowhead as in the event that they had been the homecoming king and queen, driving downtown in his burgundy convertible. Their first public date occurred at Prime Social within the metropolis’s Nation Membership Plaza space, an evening when greater than a 3rd of Kelce’s teammates joined the gathering with Swift’s associates.
At a observe the subsequent week, Kunal Tanna, Veach’s assistant, made the standard rounds, asking these in every place room if they’d any track requests for that day’s exercise. That’s how certainly one of Swift’s songs made it onto the playlist, making for a light-weight second throughout observe. Mahomes approached Tanna. “That was actually humorous,” he mentioned, earlier than including, “don’t ever do it once more” — a message for Tanna, and for the group, that exterior noise stays exterior the observe subject.
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Swift was studying a brand new world as properly. She attended her first street recreation per week later, a Sunday nighter towards the New York Jets in East Rutherford, N.J. When Swift arrived at MetLife Stadium, reasonably than being greeted by a raucous crowd of paparazzi, it was a set of sports activities journalists, as well mannered as they had been uncertain of what to do. “It’s so quiet in right here,” Swift mentioned after exiting her automotive; she then had an opportunity to benefit from the possible unfamiliar sound of her personal footsteps echoing as she made her means by means of the tunnel.
Swift continued attending video games, and because the season progressed, the rhythm turned extra acquainted for everybody concerned. The group embraced her presence. She was on the sphere subsequent to Kelce simply minutes after the Chiefs received the AFC Championship Sport in Baltimore. A lot to the shock of nearly everybody, she was on the sphere within the chaotic moments after Tremendous Bowl LVIII. (For these questioning, she can be in attendance for Thursday evening’s season opener towards the Ravens.)
This was the one signal of Taylor Swift this preseason, however issues ought to be totally different on Thursday evening. (Kevin Sabitus / Getty Pictures)
Even with Mahomes, on a trajectory to change into the best participant in NFL historical past, as their chief, nobody has generated extra optimistic buzz for the Chiefs than Kelce. When 32 gamers took the stage in entrance of the Rose Backyard with President Joe Biden in late Might, it was Kelce who was given the chance to step into the highlight.
After an invite from the president, Kelce joined Biden on the lectern: “My fellow Individuals, it’s good to see you all once more… I’m not gonna lie, President Biden, they instructed me if I got here up right here I’d get tased, so I’m gonna return to my spot.”
The ceremony ended with proprietor Clark Hunt and Reid presenting Biden with the reward of a Chiefs helmet that featured three autographs in black marker, from Reid, Veach and group president Mark Donovan. When there was a pause throughout a photograph opp, Kelce led a bunch of gamers encouraging Biden to place the helmet on.
Biden obliged. There have been cheers and laughter. Even kicker Harrison Butker, stoic within the prime row for many of the ceremony, couldn’t assist however crack a smile.
Talking to a packed gymnasium in Atchison, Kan., on Might 11, Butker’s deal with to Benedictine Faculty’s Class of 2024 began the best way most graduation speeches do: He congratulated the graduates. Nothing else he mentioned over the subsequent 20 minutes was abnormal.
The 28-year-old kicker referred to Satisfaction Month, the occasions in June demonstrating inclusivity and help for the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, for example of the “lethal sins,” as he advocated for a extra conservative model of Catholicism. He criticized Biden on a number of points, together with abortion and the dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic, even questioning Biden’s private devotion to Catholicism. Addressing a category that included a whole bunch of girls, Butker mentioned a girl’s most essential title is “homemaker.”
“It’s you, the ladies, who’ve had probably the most diabolic lies instructed to you,” Butker instructed them. “A few of you could go on to steer profitable careers on the planet, however I might enterprise to guess that almost all of you’re most enthusiastic about your marriage and the youngsters you’ll convey into this world.”
Hours after the speech was posted to YouTube, the backlash started. GLAAD, a non-profit LGBTQ advocacy group, denounced the speech. So did the order of nuns affiliated with Benedictine Faculty. Jokes began rolling in. On the 2024 ESPY Awards, which Butker attended, tennis legends Serena and Venus Williams mentioned the yr in girls’s sports activities onstage with “Abbott Elementary” star Quinta Brunson. Venus instructed the viewers to “go forward and revel in girls’s sports activities, such as you would some other sports activities, as a result of they’re sports activities.”
Serena added the punchline: “Besides you, Harrison Butker. We don’t want you.”
“In any respect. Like, ever,” Brunson added.
The Williams sisters made a joke at Harrison Butker’s expense on the 2024 ESPYS.
Venus: “So, go forward and revel in girls’s sports activities such as you would some other sports activities, as a result of they’re sports activities.”
Serena: “Besides you, Harrison Butker.”
🎥 @awfulannouncing pic.twitter.com/3LWmIQqfkd
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) July 12, 2024
There have been additionally those that rallied in help of Butker. Inside per week of the speech, the ladies’s model of Butker’s jersey was out of inventory within the official Chiefs Professional Store, and his males’s jersey was listed among the many prime sellers on NFLshop.com. A fan made a big register help of Butker, inserting it alongside the freeway close to Missouri Western State’s campus, the place the Chiefs held coaching camp: “Thanks Harrison Butker for having the braveness to talk the reality.”
The NFL launched an announcement distancing itself from Butker’s feedback, saying his views are usually not these of the league. Mahomes and Kelce expressed their disagreement with Butker’s feedback, too, however voiced their respect for him as a teammate.
Within the days after Butker’s speech, these in Chiefs management felt all they may do was wait to see what occurred when Butker returned for OTAs. They had been shocked, not solely by the quantity of consideration the speech drew however that Butker had agreed to make a speech in any respect. Whereas the Chiefs know Butker is devoutly spiritual, he has by no means been particularly aggressive in sharing his beliefs. For Butker’s half, when Benedictine Faculty requested him to be its graduation speaker simply days after Tremendous Bowl LVIII, he initially declined earlier than reconsidering.
“I attempt to shield my privateness as a lot as doable, however I’ve been within the league seven years and I do have a platform,” Butker mentioned. “With that comes individuals who need me to state what I imagine to be crucial.”
All eyes had been on Butker, and his interactions together with his teammates, on that first day again within the locker room. He did crossword puzzles within the coaching room with a number of the defensive linemen. He chatted with different teammates. And for the Chiefs, it appeared clear that, whereas this was an understandably huge challenge exterior their facility, it wasn’t going to be an issue inside it.
“Ever since that speech, there’s been tons of conversations within the locker room, guys connecting and attempting to grasp one another,” Butker mentioned. “It’s been a good looking factor to see. That’s what’s so particular about sports activities. There’s not many sports activities the place you could have 50 to 100 guys with a bunch of various beliefs and we’re all combating collectively to win.”
Sitting in a particular groups assembly on June 6, Butker heard a commotion behind him. Then he felt the jolt of somebody kicking his chair. “I rotated,” Butker mentioned, “and B.J. wasn’t doing properly.”
The kicker sprinted out of the assembly room and to the Chiefs’ coaching room, alerting assistant trainers Julie Frymyer and David Glover. By that time, B.J. Thompson, a 25-year-old defensive finish, was within the throes of a seizure.
Inside minutes, vp of sports activities medication and efficiency Rick Burkholder and his workers — Frymyer, Glover, Tiffany Morton and Evan Craft — and Dr. Jean-Philippe E Darche, a former heart who performed 9 seasons within the NFL, labored collectively to resuscitate Thompson, who fell to the ground after going into cardiac arrest. He was taken by ambulance to the College of Kansas Medical Middle and was positioned on a ventilator below heavy sedation.
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The NFL requires each group to observe its emergency motion plan earlier than each recreation and through the workweek at its coaching facility.
“We practiced on (that) Monday with a bunch known as Walters Integrated, who is available in and educates us and goes by means of eventualities like we went by means of,” Burkholder mentioned.
Thompson awakened in a steady situation and was responsive inside 24 hours. Every week after being launched from the hospital, he rejoined his teammates, making his first public look for the Chiefs’ Tremendous Bowl ring ceremony on the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Artwork in Kansas Metropolis.
📹VIDEO: #Chiefs BJ Thompson walks the crimson carpet forward of Thursday’s ring ceremony– only one week after going into cardiac arrest throughout a group assembly @KSHB41 pic.twitter.com/gyAbJXTLkH
— Aaron Ladd (@aaronladdtv) June 14, 2024
Thompson, a second-year participant who was chosen within the fifth spherical of the 2023 draft, was working to contribute as a task participant on protection and particular groups after showing in solely the regular-season finale as a rookie. After his launch from the hospital, he spent a number of days watching observe. He’ll begin this season on the non-football harm checklist, which is able to give him extra time to undergo a number of medical evaluations earlier than he may be cleared to take part in soccer actions once more. Reid mentioned Thompson may return to the observe subject as early as November.
The Chiefs’ offseason drama prolonged past their soccer operations. Two weeks after the parade taking pictures, Hunt spoke publicly at a information convention inside Arrowhead about the way forward for the 52-year-old venue. The Chiefs unveiled renderings of what they hoped could be the subsequent main renovations — modifications included enhanced suites, video boards and membership lounges. The renovations had been projected to price $800 million; Hunt mentioned he and his household would contribute $300 million.
In the course of the information convention, the NFL Gamers Affiliation launched the findings of its second annual survey, team-by-team report playing cards that assess gamers’ working circumstances and environments. The Chiefs ranked thirty first among the many NFL’s 32 groups. The dangerous information stored coming when, a month later, voters in Jackson County, Mo., rejected an extension of the three-eighths-cent gross sales tax on a poll initiative that will have funded stadium renovations for the Chiefs and Kansas Metropolis Royals. The margin of defeat was overwhelming: 58 % voted no.
None of that stopped Hunt from investing within the on-field product. He signed Reid, Veach and Donovan to contract extensions by means of the 2029 season, with Reid incomes $25 million per yr, changing into the league’s highest-paid coach. Having already signed Mahomes to the longest contract within the league (which runs by means of the 2031 season), Hunt licensed Veach and Reid to signal Kelce, Butker, move rusher Chris Jones and heart Creed Humphrey to new offers, each changing into the highest-paid participant at their place. If the Chiefs fall in need of a three-peat, it received’t be as a result of the group didn’t spend money on its upcoming mission.
As he left the sphere after Tremendous Bowl LVIII, there was one factor on Travis Kelce’s thoughts. (Jamie Squire/Getty Pictures)
The Chiefs endured an offseason that required distinctive resilience. Maybe probably the most significant signal of that resilience got here not within the days or months, however the minutes after Tremendous Bowl LVIII in February. Kelce, exhausted after the time beyond regulation victory that ended the longest season of his profession, took a second to have fun on the sphere.
Then, throughout an extended, gradual stroll again to the locker room, he delivered a easy message: “We’re doing this once more subsequent yr.”
(High photographs, left to proper: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Pictures; Courtney Culbreath / Getty Pictures; Michael Owens / AP)
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