The Super Bowl is serious business, and Chiefs head coach Andy Reid knows that better than anyone. So when the Kansas City Chiefs went into their locker room down 24-14 at the end of the first half of Super Bowl LVII, the AFC head coach wasn't going to let anything distract his team from its ultimate goal of lifting the Lombardi Trophy. That even meant threatening any player who left the room to watch Rihanna's halftime show.
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"Just Keep On Walking"
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Patrick Mahomes, who became the first Black quarterback to win two Super Bowls, was a guest Monday night on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" while taking a well-deserved victory lap around TV's biggest talk shows. As he chatted with Kimmel, the 2022 NFL MVP revealed that Reid didn't allow Rihanna to make Chiefs players lose focus on beating the Philadelphia Eagles.
Kimmel asked Mahomes what he thought of Rihanna's halftime performance, but the Super Bowl MVP made it clear that no one — not even stars JuJu Smith-Schuster or Travis Kelce — saw Rihanna's Super Bowl show.
"I heard it was great, but Coach Reid told us, he said, 'If you go out to watch the performance, just keep on walking because you're not playing the rest of the game.'"
Story: #Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes revealed that Andy Reid threatened to bench any KC player who left the locker room to watch the Rihanna's halftime show 😲 pic.twitter.com/uiQ7GnGWex
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) February 14, 2023
Reid must have been paying attention to last year's Super Bowl, where Bengals kicker Evan McPherson left the locker room ahead of the second half to watch the halftime show from the sidelines in Los Angeles. The Bengals would go on to lose to the Rams 23-20. While McPherson didn't miss a field goal or anything horrendous, it still wasn't a great look.
Bengals rookie kicker Evan McPherson came out during halftime to watch the show 😂 Can you blame him? pic.twitter.com/0KuqPD3SSE
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) February 14, 2022
Mahomes and the Chiefs stayed in their locker room to game-plan a way by committee to stop quarterback Jalen Hurts and the Eagles running backs. What transpired in the second half of their win at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, was miraculous. The Chiefs scored on every possession they had, including three touchdowns, on their way to their second Super Bowl victory in four years. At this point, Mahomes is beginning to look like the next Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. That's all thanks to Reid's refusal to let any distraction get in his way, even if the rest of the world had been waiting for Rihanna's performance for the last half-decade.
