According to Jason Reid of ESPN’s The Undefeated, the NFL’s reversal on its response to player protests may have been triggered by the involvement of a particular athlete in a video pressing league officials to acknowledge the injustices that persons of color face in everyday life. The athlete? Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“(T)he importance of Mahomes’ involvement in the video can’t be overstated,” said Reid, citing league insiders. “He’s not only the game’s top black star. He’s the face of the entire NFL.”
As a Chiefs fan myself, I’ve had the luxury of watching Patrick Mahomes change things practically overnight, bringing a half-century of what honestly felt like comical ineptness in Kansas City to an end with his mystifying style of play and picking up accolades (Super Bowl MVP, regular-season MVP) and endorsements (Helzberg Diamonds, State Farm) along the way. Now here he is, as Reid suggests, changing the NFL even further through his assertion in the video that “Black Lives Matter.”