His approach before Super Bowl 58 was no different. While anticipating the national anthem, Jones turned to defensive teammate George Karlaftis, professing that he was about to get “emotional.” Karlaftis thought nothing of it.
In fact, with Jones’ mere suggestion, Karlaftis noted that he was probably about to cry, too!
Despite not actually winning the Super Bowl this year, it’s hard to find someone who had a better time celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ overtime victory in Las Vegas than Jason Kelce.
By now, videos of the Philadelphia Eagles center dancing around the Chiefs’ afterparty in a luchador mask he found have spread far and wide. They even made their way back to the mask’s rightful owner â and Kelce is on a mission to make sure the iconic item is returned safely.
After detailing how he discovered the mask on the latest episode of his podcast New Heights, Kelce was notified the mask actually belongs to Dallas eighth grader Elijah Smith, and promised he would get it back to him.
Operation âGet Elijah His Mask Backâ is underway! I appreciate everyone bringing this to my attention, and look forward to uniting Elijah with his mask once again. Your mask indeed brings great fortune, I owe you big time, sorry it was commandeered https://t.co/HHazKInFRi
The Smith family told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth that Elijah’s mask has made it to four Super Bowls (and counting), has been autographed by Chiefs players and has a certain lucky quality to it:
The family hopes to get the mask back, but if not they are just grateful they got to be there.
“He was happy. He was excited. There was so much celebrating going on and dancing. And you couldn’t help but be excited,” said mom Sarah Smith. “I asked him when we got to the room, ‘Wait, he has your mask?’ And he’s like ‘Yea’ and I said ‘Are you upset?’ And he just wasn’t upset, he was a little bummed because it’s his autographed mask with Trent McDuffie, that was upsetting, but at the end of the day we were all celebrating a Super Bowl win.”
There’s just one thing that would make it even better. “It would be pretty cool if he autographed it and sent it back,” Elijah said.
Considering Kelce saw Elijah’s comments, here’s hoping there’s an extra surprise or two inside the package once the mask makes its way home.
From the moment the Kansas City Chiefs made the Super Bowl, it was apparent that Taylor Swift was facing quite the journey to make the game in Las Vegas from Tokyo.
While a 17-hour time difference and 12-hour flight would be absolute mayhem on most people in terms of jet lag, Swift showed up to Allegiant Stadium with all of the energy to both cheer on the Chiefs and celebrate the Super Bowl win well into the early morning hours.
When it came time for Travis Kelce to greet Swift postgame, even the Chiefs tight end was impressed that the 14-time Grammy winner wasn’t dealing with jet lag. To that, Swift had just about the coolest response.
âhow do you not have jet lag rn?â âjet lag is a choiceâ sheâs so funny đ pic.twitter.com/8twPWP7KAJ
Of course, it’s almost certainly more comfortable to make that journey in a private jet than a middle seat in economy. But still, that’s a massive time difference to make with less than a day to adjust. No wonder Kelce was impressed.
Good morning, Winners. Thanks so much for reading TMW today and being with us. We appreciate your time.
With this newsletter, my normal focus is on bringing joy through the lens of sports to your inbox. That’s a hard task today considering the circumstances of what went down in the sports world on Wednesday.
We were all robbed of the joy that sports can bring when someone decided to open fire at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade. There were at least 21 people wounded. One person was killed. I’m sure every single person in attendance was scarred for life.
That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about â the pain and anguish so many of those people must still be feeling today.
Folks pulled up to that parade rightfully thinking that they’d just be there to celebrate a momentous accomplishment done by their favorite team. They were there for joy. Posterity. Because they wanted to feel like they were a part of something bigger. Something that was supposed to be a simple, good time. This was something they’d be able to tell their kids’ kids about.
Instead, some of them were left to wonder if their friends were OK after dodging bullets. Men, women, children, babies. Bullets have no discretion. Nobody was safe. Everyone took cover. For some, taking cover didn’t work.
Here’s the sick part: Those folks might be considered a bit more fortunate than others, given the circumstances. The friends of the 21 wounded probably went to bed unable to sleep because they couldn’t stop wondering if their loved ones would make it through the night.
For one the woman who was killed, local radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan? Her two children just lost their mother. Her brother lost a sister. Her family will never be able to hug her again. They won’t be able to share a meal with her or just tell her how their day went. They’ll never watch movies together again or listen to music. They’ll never get the chance to tell her how much they love her again.
It makes my blood boil just thinking about it. How could someone be so selfish? How can people be so cruel? To steal a life is to steal someone’s joy. Their hopes and dreams are just gone in an instant for no good reason. It just doesn’t add up. It never will. But it happens far too often in this country.
I’m 31 years old and, thankfully, I still talk to my mother every day. We don’t talk about much. It’s just shooting the breeze, you know? But every single time I tell her I’m going somewhere â it could be somewhere as simple as the grocery store â she’ll say to me, “Please be careful, son.” She’s been saying that to me for as long as I can remember.
It always confused me. “I’ll be OK just like I always am,” or something like it is my usual response because I’m a grown man now. I’ve always been able to take care of myself. I know I’m her child, but I’m not a child anymore.
Today? I get it. I see it. Because, just like me going to pick up some fruit from the market, the folks who were shot today expected to be safe. They expected to have a good time. They expected things to be normal. Lisa Lopez-Galvan expected to go home to her children last night.
Instead, she’s dead, and 21 others are wounded. Nobody expected this. And that’s the point. In this country â in this world â you just never know. It shouldn’t be this way. But our reality is it is.
So tell your people you love them today.
Steve Wilks deserved better
(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
In case you missed it in all the chaos yesterday, the 49ers fired their defensive coordinator after his unit held Patrick Mahomes to just 19 points in regulation during the Super Bowl. Christian D’Andrea broke down the Steve Wilks firing.
It feels like Wilks being scapegoated here. Here’s Christian with more:
“Wilks may not have been the solution for which Shanahan asked, but he wasnât the problem either. He continued his streak of player development, leaning into San Franciscoâs strengths to bring the absolute best out of guys like Ward, Lenoir and free agent arrival Javon Hargrave. He authored a bend-donât-break defense that covered its biggest weakness (consistent stops against the run) only for new ones to bubble to the surface at the worst possible time.
The 49ers couldnât fire the head coach who is 35-16 over the last three regular seasons and has made it to the NFC title game or further four of the last five years. But they could push Wilks onto Shanahanâs sword after just a year of service. Thatâs the price of success; a symptom of complacency that sweeps away âgoodâ in a possibly futile effort to be ‘great.’,”
What a tough way to go out. Wilks will land on his feet somewhere at some point. But, man, I can’t help but feel like he deserved another shot in San Francisco.
The Lakers should’ve traded LeBron
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
That’s according to our Prince Grimes. He put together a pretty compelling case for it in Layup Lines on Wednesday.
“If any other team had been as mediocre as the Lakers have been for so long, people would have been calling for them to either swing big or blow it up a long time ago. But because James is one of the greatest players ever, the Lakers are allowed to continue making marginal changes around him and Davis, moves that have largely failed outside of the trades that sparked last yearâs unexpected run to the conference finals (where they got swept).
The next logical step is to assess whether itâs time to start a rebuild. Sit down with James, have a conversation about where this thing is realistically going, then at least consider what a trade could look like. Instead, it sounds like the Lakers stuck their head in the sand and let another team do the work of finding out whether he wanted to be there. Nothing about that sounds promising to me.”
Honestly, trading LeBron is tough. He might be the greatest player to ever touch a basketball. Justifying that to your fans is always going to be an uphill battle.
San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has been directly involved in three blown leads at the Super Bowl. And like his earlier losses with the Falcons and Niners, poor coaching decisions played a huge role in the defeats.
Even Travis Kelce couldn’t believe what the 49ers were doing.
With the new overtime rules for the Super Bowl, both teams are guaranteed a possession unless the first drive results in a defensive score. So, the team that receives second benefits because it knows exactly what it needs to score. The Niners, though, won that overtime toss and elected to receive first.
Kelce explained on Wednesday’s New Heights podcast why he was so surprised.
Travis Kelce was stunned the 49ers chose to take the ball first in overtime đŹ
“You win the coin toss, that’s what you get. You get the opportunity to have the advantage. And they gave it right over to us. … Not trying to harp on the guy, but it was a huge (mistake) — when they said they wanted to receive and the ref looked at Fred (Warner) and he said, ‘Are you sure?’ … I jumped out of my seat.”
Shanahan tried to defend the decision by claiming he wanted the opportunity to have the ball third in a potential sudden-death drive. But that entire reasoning overlooked the fact that two-point conversions exist, and that the Chiefs were going for two had the Niners scored a touchdown in that first drive. The Niners were never going to get a third possession, which made the decision so puzzling — along with several Niners players admitting they didn’t know the overtime rules changed.
That’s the kind of mistake that separates a Super Bowl champion from a Super Bowl-losing team.
Thanks to NFL Films, we now know what the power couple said to each other as confetti fell at Allegiant Stadium.
Kelce — who finished the game with nine receptions for 93 yards — immediately thanked Swift for making the long journey from Tokyo to be at the game. He continually thanked her for the support. Here’s the video:
Heading into the season, the contract situation for Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones was a major concern. He sat out all of training camp and the first game of the regular season before striking a one-year deal with the Chiefs.
His possible final game with Kansas City was in a Super Bowl-winning effort against the 49ers, and Travis Kelce made sure to let Jones know just how highly he thinks of him.
In mic’d-up footage from NFL Films’ Inside the NFL, we could hear as Kelce and Jones shared a celebratory moment on the field at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
The footage from Sunday’s Super Bowl 58 and the ensuing Kansas City Chiefs celebratory afterparty produced enough content to sustain Swifties and Chiefs fans for an entire offseason. But somehow, Jason Kelce managed to be the true star of every video.
It’s absolutely incredible, and we’re here for it.
During the Chiefs’ afterparty at XS Nightclub, Jason donned a Luchador mask and hyped up the crowd on stage alongside megastar DJs like Marshmello and The Chainsmokers. Jason was living his life exactly how one should when their brother wins the Super Bowl, and he had zero quit in him. He also learned rather quickly what Vegas can do to a 36-year-old.
As Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift appeared ready to call it a night, the Chiefs tight end put his jacket around Swift. It was an adorable moment captured on video, but again, stay for Jason.
Jason stumbled into the frame and nearly face-planted into those Wynn bushes off to the side. He wouldn’t have been the first person to take a tumble into that shrubbery, but thankfully Jason was able to power through and stay on his feet. He’s an athlete, after all.
Fans, though, could not get enough of the footage. Jason Kelce certainly won the night.
Jason Kelce and the rest of the Kelce family enjoyed Sunday’s Super Bowl 58 in a celebrity-packed luxury suite at Allegiant Stadium. And when it came time to take the celebratory festivities to a nearby nightclub, Jason was absolutely the life of the party.
We’ve already seen videos of Jason donning a Luchador mask and moonlighting as a guest DJ on stage at XS Nightclub. AND we’ve also seen the adorable videos of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift dancing to “Love Story.”
But there’s something truly cinematic when those two scenes share a single sequence. This is the juxtaposition we all needed.
First, we get Travis and Taylor dancing and kissing to Taylor’s own song — which was incredible. Then, the camera pans to a masked Jason hyping up the crowd alongside Marshmello.
That’s a thing that actually happened, and we couldn’t have made it up if we tried. A Las Vegas Super Bowl was truly something else.
Fans also particularly loved that new footage from the Chiefs’ afterparty. Jason was enjoying all of it.
In their past two trips to the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers held double-digit leads against the Kansas City Chiefs. Both times, they had to watch as Patrick Mahomes celebrated a Super Bowl title.
And for the Niners’ radio broadcast, you can truly hear that pain in the voice of play-by-play announcer Greg Papa.
After the Chiefs pulled off their overtime win in Super Bowl 58 on a Mecole Hardman touchdown, the Niners’ broadcast went from nervous energy to disappointment to complete silence in a quick sequence. They were devastated, and that was clear when commentator Tim Ryan came in with a loud, “Dang it!”
Here was the call:
How the 49ers losing Super Bowl LVIII to end their season sounded on 49ers radio pic.twitter.com/vYlOgbfO9P
