That didn’t take long at all. The funtime tradition that erupts every election cycle when America’s favorite league gets pulled kicking and screaming into our political dog mess. The NFL is back. So is the discord.
Column by Candace Buckner
If football’s journey into the 2024 election has already started ahead of Week 1, then just you wait. In the most momentous presidential election of our lifetime (at least until 2028), the NFL will naturally play a starring role in helping a divided nation pick sides.
As if we needed more assistance in this pursuit, we’ve got the wife of an NFL superstar and — long sigh — a kicker serving as tour guides into our deepest tensions.
In August, Brittany Mahomes, the spouse of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, caught the Swifties’ attention by apparently double-tapping and thus “liking” an Instagram post from Donald Trump’s account that outlined the 2024 GOP platform. The 20-point post hit on the usual trite MAGA talking points: promoting fears that migrants are rampant criminals, that trans women are taking over sports and that public schools must be stopped from influencing young minds on any topic about race in America.
Though Mahomes reportedly removed her like and then took aim at “haters” who dared to take notice of her social media activity on her public and verified account, she had stepped in it politically. And Trump, of course, joined in — spraying aerosol cans on this dumpster fire. On Wednesday, Trump shared his gratitude on his social media platform, thanking the “beautiful Brittany Mahomes for so strongly defending me, and the fact that MAGA is the greatest and most powerful Political Movement in the History of our now Failing Country.”
Aligning herself with Trump — an unforgivable sin to many of Taylor Swift’s biggest fans. Swift, the tight end’s famous girlfriend, once tweeted directly at Trump that “we will vote you out.” Note to the NFL’s broadcast partners: Now you can justify all of those close-up shots inside the Chiefs’ family suites this season — and a hidden mic, if possible — so the viewing audience can spy any frosty interaction between Mahomes and her so-called bestie.
Although Brittany somehow accomplished the incredibly difficult task of tumbling down the depth chart of likability in the Mahomes family, at least her actions didn’t force the NFL to put out a statement.
That distinction belonged to Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who earlier this summer used a commencement speech at a private Catholic college to rage against — among many, many things — President Joe Biden and his support of abortion access. Butker’s speech, which also included his assumption that the graduating women of Benedictine College were more excited about becoming wives and mothers rather than using their degrees to further their careers, prompted the league to issue a statement that “his views are not those of the NFL as an organization.”
Months later, the Eagles organization rushed to distance itself from political propaganda that depicted Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, as the “official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles.” Those green and white posters were outfitted inside the windows of bus stops around the city and appeared to be actual ads. They even included a link to the team’s official webpage that features nonpartisan voting information. However, the posters were fakes and on Monday, the team had to pause its usual football content and address the “counterfeit political ads.”
The notion that someone, or some group, would steal an NFL team’s logo and font as the vehicle to push an agenda speaks to the league’s power. Football matters too much in red states, blue states, swing states and any other place in our country. No other sport possesses such an outsize influence — so much so that the game, and those who play it or even speak about it, can shape ideology.
In 2017, while he was president but still pandering to his followers, Trump seized on the league’s popularity when he exploited the protests of NFL players, casting himself as the only suitable patriot who would protect the national anthem. Democrats, too, have tried leveraging the sport in their favor. Last month during the Democratic National Convention, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, wanted to bring a more folksy, Americana element to his party, he squeezed every football term imaginable into his closing remarks.
This is a league that candy-coats its social and cultural initiatives with a kumbaya sentiment — during the 2020 season, the NFL stenciled the words “End Racism” in the end zone and thought it could dismantle centuries of bigotry one touchdown at a time. Also, its Gridiron Political Action Committee donates money to both Republican and Democratic candidates and causes. Still, try as it might, the NFL can never remain agnostic and above the political battlefield. Because football is too big, too significant, too sprawling to coast through an election cycle such as this without constant brushfires threatening to heat up the environment.
So before the next president takes office, we might get deepfakes in Dallas showing Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at a Trump rally. Or maybe the league’s resident wild card, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, will ask for Harris’s autograph near the 19th Amendment on a copy of the Constitution. (True story: Irsay asked former president Barack Obama to sign his more-than-200-year-old duplicate of the Declaration of Independence.)
November won’t feel right until Rodgers finds a way to insert himself back into the A-block of cable network shows. And until Swift once again makes conspiracy-minded conservatives go loony with theories on how the government is fixing games in favor of the Chiefs.
Welp, the NFL is back. And here to help us tear each other apart.
