Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker wasn’t just encroaching on the Kansas City Chiefs’ warmups before Sunday’s AFC Championship. As Travis Kelce told his brother Jason on this week’s episode of their New Heights podcast, the NFL legend was actually playing head games.
‘Don’t look at me as the bad guy,’ Travis told Jason, the Philadelphia Eagles center. ‘He was poking the bear.’
Prior to the Chiefs’ 17-10 victory over the Ravens, Kelce was seen furiously moving Tucker’s gear while the celebrated kicker was stretching at Kansas City’s end of the field just a few feet from Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes. NFL Network’s James Palmer caught the exchange on his cell phone and the footage quickly went viral.
‘I had multiple people text me at the end of the game, middle of the game, like: ”What’s Travis doing?”’ Jason said.
On their podcast, Travis pointed the finger at Tucker: ‘If you’re trying to go onto the other team’s designated area, you kind of stay out of their way. You don’t interfere with what they have going on… That’s the unwritten rule. If you want to be a f***ing d*** about it, you keep your helmet, and your football, and your f***ing kicking tee right where the quarterbacks are warming up. And they’re dropping back [to pass] eyes are looking left and they got a helmet down by their feet.
Travis Kelce told Justin Tucker he needed to move because their QB Patrick Mahomes had to warm up. So Kelce kicked his ball away and threw his helmet. 😂 pic.twitter.com/pFF0DC1yA7
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) January 28, 2024
Jason was quick to point out, ‘it’s actually kind of dangerous,’ while agreeing with his brother about the kicker.
‘Tucker is known for this,’ Jason said. ‘He’s a legendary kicker and he knows how to poke the buttons.’
Mahomes, too, has accused Tucker of regularly pulling this stunt.
‘I’ve had like seven years of doing that same warm-up routine and there’s only been, I think, like three occasions where there’s been a kicker that wasn’t necessarily moving out the way, or you thought you weren’t sharing the field in the right way,’ Mahomes told Kansas City sports radio host Carrington Harrison this week. ‘I mean, it was in Baltimore all three times. He does a little stuff, I think, to try to get under our skin.’
