Jason Whitlock has hit out at ‘knucklehead’ Travis Kelce over his reaction to teammate Harrison Butker’s controversial speech.
Chiefs kicker Butker sparked widespread outrage with his comments at Benedictine College, Kansas, where he told female graduates to be excited for the ‘vocation’ of being a homemaker, using his wife Isabelle as an example.
Kelce was among those to address Butker’s speech, with the tight end admitting he disagreed with most of his teammate’s views. But he refused to condemn Butker.
The Chiefs star said he ‘cherishes’ him as a teammate but cited his own upbringing – when his parents were both providers and homemakers – as the reason why he does not share the kicker’s views.
But Kelce has now come under fire for his comments, with Whitlock accusing him of being less ‘bold and honest and masculine’ than Butker.
‘Travis Kelce said a whole lot of nothing there because he has virtually no self-awareness,’ Whitlock said.
‘And that’s not a personal attack on Travis Kelce. It’s really an attack on the great wealth and fame and attention and adoration we pour on athletes.
‘He has no reason to be self-aware. He thinks that he’s here and he’s famous and he’s rich and he’s super successful because both of his parents worked outside the home. He doesn’t recognize because Travis Kelce is a knucklehead.’
Whitlock accused the Chiefs tight end of having ‘athletic privilege’ because he ‘hit the genetics lottery’.
‘If you followed his career as closely as I have over 10 to 12 years, maybe a little bit longer, he’s a knucklehead. If he were not 6ft 5, 255lbs he would not be a rich and successful person that anybody cared about – in my view.
‘He’d be a dumb jock who was short… Travis Kelce has athletic privilege, he hit the genetics lottery, now he’s rich and famous, now he gets to pretend like he has some sort of mature, sophisticated perspective on the world. He does not.’
Kelce was speaking on the latest episode of New Heights when he defended Butker against the backlash.
‘When it comes down to his views and what he said at the Saint Benedict’s commencement speech, those are his. I can’t say I agree with the majority of it or just about any of it outside of just him loving his family and his kids,’ Kelce said.
‘And I don’t think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views, of how to go about life, that’s just not who I am.
