Justin Tucker called it “all in good fun.” Patrick Mahomes is calling it an effort to irk the Chiefs.
The fireworks between the Chiefs and Ravens started prior to the AFC Championship Game itself, with an incident between Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Justin Tucker leading to a dustup on the Chiefs sideline.
Ahead of games, teams will have to at least partially share the field during warmups. That oftentimes ends up with the kicker down near the opposing team so they can kick towards their team, not into the opponent.
Mahomes and Tucker were sharing roughly the same space near the end zone. Mahomes asked Tucker to move some of his things, and the kicker somewhat obliged. Not satisfied with how far Tucker moved his belongings, Kelce opted to take it upon himself to defend his quarterback and relocate the kicker’s stuff. Mahomes, meanwhile, was kicking Tucker's holder away. A fracas eventually ensued between the two teams.
“(It’s been made) a bigger deal than it actually was,” Mahomes said Tuesday in his weekly appearance on The Drive. “At the same time, I've had seven years of doing that same warmup routine and there's only been like three occasions where there's been a kicker that wasn't ... moving out of the way. It was in Baltimore all three times.
"He does that little stuff to try to get under our skin. I asked him to move his stuff and he got up and moved it I think two inches but didn't move it out of the way. I was going to kind of let it slide but Travis got it and moved it for me and after that I wasn't going to let him put it back down. So, we move on.
"I have a lot of respect for him as a player and as a kicker. He's one of the best kickers of all time, probably the best kicker of all time. But at the same time, you've got to have respect for each team. We all share the field and we try to do that in a respectful way.''
The Chiefs ultimately got the last laugh, punching their ticket to the Super Bowl with a 17-10 win at M&T Bank Stadium.
Tucker offered his side of the story Monday.
"I’ve been doing the exact same thing for 12 years, never had a problem with anybody," Tucker told reporters. "I saw Patrick there trying to warm up and get some dropbacks. He asked me while I was on the ground stretching if I could move my helmet.
"I happily got up and moved my helmet out of the way, at least I thought it was enough out of the way. And then Travis comes over and he just kicks my stuff, he throws my helmet. I thought it was all just some gamesmanship, all in good fun. But they seemed to be taking it a little more seriously."