Look, there’s no reason to believe the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl LVII was anything other than legitimate.
But seeing the commissioner of the league do a “Dirty Dancing” routine in the arms of one of KC’s best players, only to then say he doesn’t care if said player violates one of the league’s holiest commandments is … strange, to say the least.
That’s what we had Sunday night at State Farm Stadium in the moments following the Chiefs’ dramatic 38-35 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Cameras caught NFL commissioner Roger Goodell go up to Chiefs star defensive tackle Chris Jones and engage in one of the biggest bear hugs you’ll ever see.
Jones, as you can see in the video shared by FOX Sports’ official NFL account, certainly added a little mustard to the interaction.
Of the few relatively peculiar occurrences in the video, Goodell’s assurance about Jones’ physical play was certainly one of the more noteworthy.
“I don’t care how you hit the quarterback,” someone, presumably Goodell, can be heard telling Jones.
It’s definitely an odd look, but rational minds should see it for what it is: Goodell wanted to congratulate one of the league’s best players, a player who has a sterling reputation. Jones, euphoric from winning the Super Bowl responded in kind with the jubilation you’d expect from someone in his shoes.
Furthermore, we’ve seen this from Jones (and Goodell) before. The ferocious pass rusher’s unofficial first sack came on draft night in 2016 when Kansas City took him out of Mississippi State. It happened so long ago that there’s no embeddable video, but you can watch it here.
“I told the commissioner I didn’t mean to hit him that hard,” Jones told reporters at the draft in 2016, per the Clarion Ledger.
So, the hug is what it is. The comment about hitting the quarterback, assuming it was Goodell, is weird in a vacuum. It can be explained away, though, by Goodell being a bit of a dork.
That didn’t stop folks on the internet from screaming about some sort of a conspiracy, playing very much into the “script” meme.
We’ll just say this was a nice interaction between two humans that, viewed in a certain light, probably looks and sounds a lot worse than it actually is. But given the relatively controversial ending to the game paired with Goodell’s recent comments about officiating, it’s certainly not the best interaction to be caught and replayed over and over.
