Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes prepared for any blowback for his Black Lives Matter support
The NFL season kicks off in less than three weeks and Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu said last week that the team hasn’t decided what it would do during the national anthem.
“I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” Mathieu said on The Ringer’s “10 questions with Kyle Brandt” podcast. “But I gotta tell you whatever we do we should be 100% united. And I think us all should represent the same thing. We all should be screaming for the same cause and if we’re not, then it’s not good.”
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, some NFL players have said they will take a knee during the anthem.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes hasn’t revealed his plans, but he was in the video of NFL players who asked the league to show it believes Black Lives Matter. Mahomes later told reporters he’s ready to use his platform as one of the NFL’s best players to speak out for social justice and has joined LeBron James’ drive for voter registration.
Mahomes was on Peter King’s podcast this week and talked about the Chiefs quarterback’s participation in social justice issues. King asked if Mahomes was “ready to take the scorn from some that certainly is going to come as you stand up and talk about hey everybody’s got to vote and standing up and saying very stridently Black Lives Matter.”
Here was Mahomes’ response: “I mean there’s gonna be people either way. I’ve noticed that throughout my whole life and I’ve had a great perspective throughout my whole life of seeing my dad play in New York on the Mets. They’re writing bad things about him or people are booing him when he throws one ball, and then knowing how to have thick skin and not listening to that, really just understanding what type of person and player that I am and that he was and that everyone is, and knowing where my values are and how much I care about people more than I care about playing on Sundays.
“And so I’m going to go out there and be the best person that I am every single day. Hopefully I have the support of all the fans that have been with me since the beginning and if I don’t, then those fans weren’t true fans of Patrick Mahomes — they were just fans of what I did on the football field.
“I really respect the people that whether they have the same beliefs with me or not, they’re gonna support me for the person that I am every single day.”
Here is the whole conversation between King and Mahomes:
