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Travis Kelce has spoken out regarding the claims that the Kansas City Chiefs cheated during their playoff game against the Houston Texans on Saturday (January 18).
During an episode of his New Heights podcast alongside his older brother Jason Kelce on Wednesday, the two of them addressed criticisms that the referees favored the Chiefs, in particular awarding penalties for touches on quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
One such critic was rapper Lil Wayne, who wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), “I hate the cheating azz chiefs.”
“It’s not even impressive when u cheat and then clearly try to cheat. Just win baby,” he wrote in a follow-up post.
“The whole world was talking about something else during the game, and I’m sure you saw some of this, but they were complaining about the refs again, Trav,” Jason said on the podcast. “Even Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne [wrote on social media], ‘I hate the cheating azz Chiefs. So an ass with two z’s.”
“Shout out to Tuchie man,” Travis replied.
Jason then pointed out an X post from Khalen Saunders, a defensive tackle for the New Orleans Saints, who admitted that while some of the referee calls may have been questionable, the Texans also left Travis “wide booty butt nekkid open for 4 quarters.”
“They did,” Travis confirmed during the podcast. “They left me butt-naked open.”
“Not saying there weren’t some questionable calls in the afc playoff game yesterday but bruh Gahhhhhhdamn i promise that the refs why them mfs keep winning. Like be so mf fr rn,” Saunders wrote in a follow-up post. “I genuinely hope that in the afc championship that the chiefs get like 13 penalties and still win.”
The older Kelce brother then asked Travis for his opinion on the two controversial calls, which he decided to “plead the fifth” to.
Following the game in which the Chiefs beat the Texans with a final score of 23 to 14, Will Anderson Jr. — one of the players who received a penalty for roughing the passer (Mahomes) — admitted in an interview with ESPN that the team went into the game with an “us versus the refs” mindset.
The Texans coach DeMeco Ryans, echoed Anderson’s point as he said, “We knew going into this game, man, it was us versus everybody.”
“And when I say everybody, it’s everybody. Knowing that going into this game, what we were up against, we can’t make the mistakes that we made…”
With the Chiefs’ win, they will now be playing against the Buffalo Bills to determine who will be the AFC Champions and move on to the Super Bowl.
The Chiefs have gone on to win the Super Bowl and take home the Vince Lombardi trophy for the last two years in a row, as they now attempt to achieve their third Super Bowl win.
Their game versus the Bills will take place on Sunday, January 26 at Arrowhead Stadium with a kickoff time of 6 p.m. ET.
