‘UNACCEPTABLE’
Kelce admits he crossed line with bump of coach
Travis Kelce knows he behaved badly during Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday.
The Chiefs’ tight end, talking on his “New Heights” podcast alongside his brother, Jason Kelce, admitted his sideline bump of coach Andy Reid was “definitely unacceptable.”
“I can’t get that fired up to the point where bumping coach and it’s getting him off balance and stuff,” Travis said. “When he stumbled, I was like: ‘Aw, s--t’ in my head.”
CBS cameras caught an animated Travis Kelce yelling and making contact with the unsuspecting Reid after Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco lost a redzone fumble in the second quarter of the Chiefs’ eventual 25-22 OT win over the 49ers.
Initially, Kelce was upset that he wasn’t in the game when the momentum-shifting play occurred.
Reid laughed off the incident and said the 34-year-old four-time All-Pro caught him “off balance.”
“He was really coming over, just going, ‘Just put me in, I’ll score,” the coach said after securing his second consecutive Super Bowl title and third overall. “I’ll score.’ So, that’s really what it was. I love that. I mean, it’s not the first time. I appreciate him.”
The incident went viral after the game. Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady downplayed the significance of the bump.
“I don’t mind seeing it, because I was a part of a lot of those things,” Brady said on this week’s episode of SiriusXM’s “Let’s Go!” show.
“Emotions are so high. You are definitely not centered and balanced. You’re not in a meditative state at that point. You are fully determined to go out there and to win. I think a lot of the things that are said during the games, people should just let them fly off their back.”
But on Wednesday, Jason Kelce said his younger brother “crossed the line” and yelling in Reid’s face was “too over the top.” Travis continued to take responsibility for his actions and called the bump a “cheap shot.” Travis added he anticipated the coach to have harsh words for him after the moment, but Reid acknowledged the tight end without any unpleasantries.
“I deserve it,” he said. “If he would have cold cocked me in the face right there, I would have just ate it. I would have been like: ‘Let’s f–king go.’ ”
Travis ended Super Bowl LVIII with nine catches for 93 yards. The incident occurred in the first half, in which the tight end caught only one pass for one yard. Following Patrick Mahomes’ game-winning touchdown to Mecole Hardman, Travis celebrated the win with Taylor Swift on the field.
The victory secured Travis’ third Super Bowl trophy — all under the helm of Reid. The tight end explained that he loved playing for Reid.
“He’s checked me a few times, and I just wanted to let him know that I wanted this thing and that he can put it on me and I got him,” Kelce said. “It just came in a moment where we weren’t playing very well. I wasn’t playing very well and we had to get some s--t going.
“Sometimes, those emotions get away from me, man. That’s been the battle of my career, but, everybody else, I don’t give a s--t what anybody else says. I talked to coach Reid about it today and we kind of chuckled about it. I couldn’t be more proud of being his product on the field, and I couldn’t be more proud of where we’ve come as a team since I got here in 2013.”