The NFL has recently received criticism for scheduling a series of games on Christmas Day, where commenters have argued that the day should be spent celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with friends and family instead of watching football. Among those who spoke out against the decision to schedule games on the Christian holiday was a pastor from Arizona, who succinctly offered his opinion of the matter.
The lead pastor at Ironwood Church in Gilbert, Arizona, Seth Troutt, took to X, writing, “I need to be very clear about something: the NFL should not be playing games on Christmas Day.” Plenty of other echoed this sentiment in the comments section. “As much as I love sports, I find it pretty abhorrent that the NFL plays on Christmas day. Christmas day is about focusing about Family and Jesus’ birth! The Westernized Christmas is now nothing more than a big money-making scheme. Pretty sad honestly,” another person said.
Joining in on the criticism, Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes lamented the idea of playing on Christmas. In total four teams will have to spend the holiday away from their families and on the field, including the Kansas City Chiefs. Moreover, the scheduling will force the Chiefs to play several games in quick succession, which Mahomes argued is not ideal.
“It’s not a good feeling,” Mahomes recently said. “You never want to play this amount of games in this short of time. It’s not great for your body. But, at the end of the day, it’s your job, your profession. You have to come to work and do it.” When asked if he had ever played that many games within such a short time frame, he said, “I haven’t in football.”
“All you can do is focus on the game. The practice you have that day,” Mahomes further noted. “I try to prepare my body all year long for this stretch. That’s tailoring my workouts, tailoring how you practice and preparev…. And the coaches do a great job of taking care of us on the practice field. We practice as hard as anybody, but they know how to dial it back when needed.”
Furthermore, the Christmas game against the Pittsburgh Steelers will prevent Mahomes from spending the holiday at home with his family, where he and his wife, Brittany, are both Christians. “My Christian faith plays a role in everything that I do. I always ask God to lead me in the right direction and let me be who I am for His name. So, it has a role in everything that I do. Obviously, we’ll be on that huge stage in the Super Bowl that He’s given me, and I want to make sure I’m glorifying Him while I do it,” he added.
“I feel like I’ve grown in my faith these last few years, and I think that’s given me more sense of who I am and why I play the game. It just kind of relieves the pressure of playing a football game because I know that I’m on that football field to glorify Him before everything. So, it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about going out there and being the best that I can in His name,” Mahomes continued.
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Watch Patrick Mahomes’ mom wearing a MAGA hat below: