Revelations that Travis Kelce was fighting a “big illness” before the Super Bowl is fueling online chatter about his decision to dine out with girlfriend Taylor Swift, teammate Patrick Mahomes and Mahomes’ wife Brittany at a posh New Orleans restaurant, fewer than 48 hours before the Kansas City Chiefs suffered a humiliating defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Chiefs general manager Brett Veach shared the news of Kelce’s illness during an upcoming episode of the NFL podcast, “The Insiders.” Noting that he wasn’t “making excuses” for the Chiefs’ loss, Veach told host Tom Pelissero Tuesday that the tight end was “battling a pretty big illness” before the Chiefs lost to the Eagles 40-22 on Feb. 9.
Veach didn’t specify the nature of the illness but quipped that it wouldn’t have had that much of an impact on the score as the Eagles played so well. “We didn’t have the end to our season that we hoped for,” he added.
Veach lamented that the Chiefs “picked a bad day to have a bad day” but promised that the team would use the loss as “motivation to get better,” and he also downplayed speculation that Kelce would retire. He said “we anticipate Travis being back” for the 2025 season.
A number of people online had things to say about Kelce’s “big illness” revelation, as they responded to Pelissero sharing a clip of his interview with the general manager on X. Some blasted Veach for making “excuses,” while others brought up Kelce’s controversial double-date with Swift and the Mahomes on the Friday night before the Super Bowl.
The two couples were heavily documented by photographers, entering and leaving the popular French restaurant Lilette, the Daily Mail reported. A large crowd of fans also gathered to catch a glimpse of the world-famous pop star on a double date with her NFL star boyfriend and his quarterback friend, fewer than two days before many hoped would be their team’s third-straight Super Bowl victory. The two couples stayed at the restaurant for a few hours and left at 10 p.m., reports said.
Photographs showed a beaming Swift, wearing a black dress and matching designer boots. Kelce, though, looked “unfocused,” fans noted after the photographs were published the next day, the Daily Mail reported.
While there has been no suggestion that Kelce and Mahomes broke any NFL rules by enjoying New Orleans’ dining scene before the Super Bowl, the players’ appearance at the restaurant was still a surprise given that it is so close to the game.
Over Super Bowl weekend, fans worried that Kelce was being complacent and breaking his own rule about not going out and socializing in the week before the big game, the Daily Mail reported. The year before, ahead of the Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers in the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas, Kelce said on his New Heights podcast, ‘We’ve got one week, we do what we need to do then we can party in Vegas for the rest of our lives.”
Now, fans have more questions about whether Kelce was really battling a “big illness” if he was able to indulge in a fancy French dinner, at what’s been described as New Orleans “sexiest restaurant.”
“If he was sick, why was he out and about in New Orleans before the game?” one person asked, while another said, “Funny he looked fine in his double date night with paps swarming two nights before the superbowl. False narrative to justify poor play.”
Elsewhere on the internet, a person commenting on a People magazine story about Veach’s comments wondered when Kelce started to feel sick. “Odd how that illness he had didn’t bother him all week when they showed him out with Taylor at clubs and eating dinner,” the person said. “That isn’t illness that’s called HANGOVERS.”
Some people pushed back at the hangover accusation, while others noted that it’s possible for a flu-type illness or food poisoning to suddenly strike. Still, another person said he can’t imagine why a top professional athlete, who is “literally paid millions,” would go out if he was already feeling under the weather or would otherwise do anything to hurt his ability to play his best at “the biggest event” in his career.