Patrick Mahomes will only judge Harrison Butker based on his character the he shows to him and his Kansas City Chiefs teammates.
The perennial MVP quarterback and three-time Super Bowl champion knows there will be different opinions from all walks of life. Butker’s recent commencement speech regarding women in the workplace, among other things, caught backlash within the last week.
Mahomes, like head coach Andy Reid, gave his take on Butker as the Chiefs opened OTAs.
“Yeah, I mean, kind of like I was talking about with the Rashee (Rice) thing, I think it’s just — I know Harrison,” Mahomes said. “I’ve known him for seven years. And I judge him based on the character that he shows every single day. And that’s a good person. That’s someone who cares about the people around him, cares about his family, and wants to make a good impact in society. When you’re in the locker room, there’s a lot of people from a lot of different areas of life and they have a lot of different views on everything.”
Mahomes also acknowledged that not everyone will share the same opinion on myriad discussions as Butker. But that doesn’t mean he lost respect for Butker or others depending upon their views.
“And we’re not always going to agree but — and there’s certain things that he said that I don’t necessarily agree with,” Mahomes said. “But I understand the person that he is, and he’s trying to do whatever he can to lead people in the right direction. And that might not be the same values as I have, but at the same time, I’m going to judge him by the character that he shows every single day and that’s a great person and we’ll continue to move along and try to help build each other up to make ourselves better every single day.
“But at the end of the day, we’re gonna come together as a team. I think that’ll help out as well as eliminate those distractions outside the building as well.”
As Mahomes alluded to, the Chiefs are there to play football, come together as teammates and look to win another Super Bowl. Outside distractions can certainly derail a team of opinionated professional athletes.
But the quarterback isn’t going to directly judge Butker for differing opinions, again judging him by his character.
“I think — there’s just certain values that you have that some people emphasize more than others, and there are just certain things that I didn’t necessarily agree with, but at the same time, I’m not gonna judge him by that,” Mahomes said. “I judge him by the way he acts every single day and I’m not gonna get into the full details of the entire speech, but at the same time, I know what kind of person he is, and I’m gonna make sure that I look at that first and then let the other stuff kind of handle itself.”
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