The Christmas Day game at Arrowhead Stadium may not carry the same weight it did when the schedule was first released. Patrick Mahomes’s absence and Chiefs being eliminated from playoff contention had a lot to do with it. From football perspective, the game was significant for Denver, who was aiming to secure AFC’s top seed. Yet, somehow, the dominant storyline was that of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce potentially playing his last home game of his career.

Amazon Prime Video’s broadcast was sure acting like it was. The post-game scenes carried unmistakable weight that amplified the sense that this night could carry long-term meaning. After Chiefs’ gutting 20-13 loss on Thursday, Kelce hung around long after the final whistle, and cameras paced to get as close to Kelce as they could as he chatted, exchanged hugs and handshakes. Cameras cut to his fiancé, Taylor Swift, and his mother, Donna, repeatedly as they watched Travis anxiously from the stands. A job well done by the broadcast team as far as capturing the moment goes.

That was until a certain member of the Kansas City Chiefs security staff, who seemed less than filled with the Christmas spirit that night, shoved cameras away. Furious, words, too, were exchanged.

As Kelce was headed out of the field, the security guard blocked the shot as he stood directly in front of the cameraman, who was attempting to follow Kelce down the tunnel. “I told you!” the security officer said. For all we know, the guard seemed to have been simply following orders as he then turned to a Chiefs PR officer as if to plead, “I told him.”

The PR officer too followed suit and stiff-armed the cameraman. He was vaguely heard saying, “You guys can’t be here. We talked about this.”

Kelce has given 13 seasons to the franchise, and caught 645 passes at Arrowhead Stadium, including the playoffs, which is the third most by any player inside a single stadium since the AFL-NFL merger. Shielding him from a lens in a possible farewell made little sense. But let’s play this out for a second. We have a theory:

Kelce’s retirement will likely be an announcement that may be reserved for an official NFL broadcast. So, maybe, corporate sponsors demanded that the team keep it under wraps until then. However, cameras hovering so close to the player also meant unwanted information getting picked up by mics. In simple words: Security stepping in had little to do with actual security and perhaps more to do with keeping the suspense intact. Why you ask? It’s all in the business of numbers.

The leak may have caused fans to sink into a delirium and skip a commercial-heavy NFL show. Dare we say, this may not be about Kelce at all!

Make no mistake, this was the same guard who was seen shoving a cameraman away from the way as Andy Reid was exchanging post-game handshakes. The act overall did not sit well with many, with lead play-by-play announcer and analyst for the night, Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit, respectively, to be the first ones to react.

Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit, among many others from media industry, who did not appreciate the guard ruining the moment

The broadcast team had some stationary cameras installed in the hallway that were able to capture Kelce disappearing into the locker room, but that was hardly the same. The announcers, for one, did let their frustrations be known. Kirk Herbstreit joked on live television that the guard was “bowed up” and “ready to go,” but an animated Michaels muttered his frustrations away with a heavy-handed approach: “We can’t let a camera go down the hallway for whatever reason, don’t ask me. I mean, come on!”

Equally exasperated was this Florida Times-Union columnist, Ryan O’Halloran. “Chiefs security guard thinks he’s God. Pushed multiple media out of way a minute before on field,” O’Halloran took to X. Adding more context to his initial post, he doubled down on the incident and shared that he, too, had fallen victim to similar treatment last season, “Yep. Shoved me after Super Bowl last year.”

“This is a guy that loves his job and shutting down heartwarming moments in Chiefs history,” NFL reporter Chase Snyder echoed the same sentiment. “And loves making enemies with Al Michaels.

“I know these guys. I see them constantly at several stops I make for work. They love nothing more than to make sure you know they have more access than you. When in reality, we’re all just trying to do our jobs and really don’t care.”

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In his defense, the security guard was doing what he may have been tasked to do. But for reporters who travel with the league each week, and their loyal viewers, the moment that far outweighed the game lost significant meaning in the process. Worse was the fact that the poor handling of media at the hands of team’s security felt all too familiar, wasn’t it?