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Patrick Mahomes is being attacked over shirtless online photos.
Patrick Mahomes has led the Kanas City Chiefs to three Super Bowl championships, five appearances in the NFL title game and seven consecutive AFC championship games. Considering that prior to Mahomes’ arrival with 10th overall pick in 2017 out of Texas Tech, the Chiefs had won only one Super Bowl, and that came in Super Bowl 4, in the 1969 season when they beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 behind quarterback Len Dawson.
Dawson became a Hall of Famer, and died in 2022 at age 87, which gives some idea of the impact that Mahomes has had on Kansas City football. The Chiefs had been a decades-long exercise in futility until Mahomes — the son of retired Major League Baseball relief pitcher Patrick Mahomes — came along.
Podcaster Busts Mahomes For ‘Belly Fat’
One would think, then, that Mahomes has earned some consideration and courtesy from the Kansas City community. But apparently, KCMO talk radio host Kevin Kietzman didn’t get the memo.
On July 7, Kietzman felt the need to offer his opinion on a set of personal photos of Mahomes, taken on his July 4 holiday weekend with his wife of three years, Brittany, and a group of friends.
The 29-year-old two-time MVP’s largely unclad physique drew a harsh response from the radio host, on his Monday podcast, when he slammed Mahomes as “fat,” an “embarrassment,” as well as a “disgrace.”
“You’re a $500 million quarterback, you’ve made all these comments in the offseason that ‘we’re gonna do our talking on the field, we got our butts kicked in the Super Bowl, we’re coming back with a vengeance’… Dude, you’re fat. Your belly would be fat at my pool, hanging out with us, 60 year olds.’
In 2020, Mahomes signed a 10-year contract with Kansas City set to pay him more than $477 million over that period.
Shock Jock ‘Telling on Himself’ With Comments
The podcaster wasn’t finished with Mahomes yet, however. His rant continued, in which he appeared to criticize Mahomes’ approach to offseason training.
“Stop the fast food. Do a sit-up. Do something,” Kietzman implored the Chiefs signal-caller.
“I’m sure he’s worked out and he’s strengthened his arm and he’s done all kind of different things, quarterback things,” he went on. “But there’s no training to this man. I don’t understand it. He’s not a kid anymore, you can’t just run through your NFL career eating Taco Bell all the time and Door Dashing fried chicken, which he loves.”
When earlier shirtless photos of him surfaced in January of 2024, drawing similar criticism, Mahomes defended his appearance, calling his body type a “dad bod,” adding, “I got kids!”
This time, it was Mahomes’ personal trainer Bobby Stroupe who took to social media to clap back at the shock jock, saying that Mahomes’ appearance was unimportant and not an indication of his football readiness.
“You obviously need attention. If you want to see what in shape is, go make it through a practice at Saint [Joseph] or run hurry-up offense scrambling back to back to back plays,” Stroupe wrote, directing his comments at Kietzman. “You don’t have a clue what it takes. It’s not a look, it’s performance.”
Pro Football Talk founder Mike Florio also checked in to defend Mahomes.
“Skinny players are actually at greater risk of getting injured. A little thickness operates as natural armor that keeps a player going when he’s getting banged around by much larger opponents,” Florio wrote on Wednesday.
“By getting caught up in how Mahomes looks with a shirt off, Kietzman is telling on himself regarding his lack of understanding as to how football works,” Florio continued. “Mahomes will be far better than fine. Because he always has been. And it’s safe to say he always will be, for as long as he wants to be.”
Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin
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