LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Steve, do you ever want to go up to your boss and just scream in their face? Maybe push them?
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Leila, are you upset about something?
FADEL: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: No, it doesn't sound like a good idea.
FADEL: Right. And we really like our boss, actually.
INSKEEP: Of course. Yeah.
FADEL: But this did happen at the Super Bowl.
INSKEEP: Yes. After the Kansas City Chiefs fumbled in the second quarter.
FADEL: Yeah. So tight end Travis Kelce rushed over to head coach Andy Reid, yelled in his face, bumped him with his chest and made him lose his balance for a second. Both men brushed it off afterwards. Here's Kelce explaining it on ESPN.
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TRAVIS KELCE: I'm going to keep it between us unless my mic'd up tells the world, but I was just telling him how much I love him.
INSKEEP: In a press conference, coach Reid said Kelce makes him feel young.
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ANDY REID: He caught me off balance. I wasn't watching. He - cheap shot. But that's all right. He did good. He was really coming over just going just put me in. I'll score. I'll score. You know, so that's really what it was. Well, I love that. I mean, it's not the first time, so I - listen, I appreciate it.
INSKEEP: He wanted to play. Jesse Washington is a senior writer for ESPN's Andscape.
JESSE WASHINGTON: To run up on your coach and get all in his space and knock him off balance and then scream at him, that was highly unusual.
FADEL: But Washington says this player and this coach go back more than a decade.
WASHINGTON: I think the context was two guys who are really passionate. They understand each other. They love each other. They're not afraid to say they love each other. And so it just came out in the heat of the moment.
FADEL: OK. I guess that's one way to show love.
INSKEEP: Sure.
FADEL: And at that moment in the game, things weren't going well.
WASHINGTON: He probably should have got a penalty. That's what my wife said. I would call it intentional chest to the coach, 15 yards and a loss of down. But it's also understandable. I mean, he's got one catch for one yard. He's not playing well. His team's not playing well. They're about to lose the Super Bowl, and he wants to help them win. He wants the ball. So in that respect, I think even though it was a bad mistake, we can all understand why he did it.
INSKEEP: He's saying put me in coach and probably got a Taylor Swift allowance. And the Chiefs did go on to win their third Super Bowl in five years.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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