Injured Harrison Butker Leapfrogs Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes in Latest Rankings After Internet Erupted Over Chiefs’ Kicker Controversial Comments

“It definitely expanded our fanbase.” Patrick Mahomes was pretty right while speaking about Taylor Swift’s entry into the Kansas City Chiefs’ kingdom. Travis Kelce and the pop icon’s dating phase is being loved and praised by many. In addition to that, they always trend on the internet due to their date nights and get-togethers.

Then in the row is Patrick Mahomes, who also hit the headlines for many reasons—be his style of playing, or his family’s off-field activities—Mahomes is among the top NFL players of the time. Despite all of these, neither Kelce nor Mahomes is trending recently.

Yes, you heard it right! This time, it’s Chiefs’s kicker Harrison Butker who leapfrogged Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes to join the latest rankings of the athletes announced by Google Trends. According to trends, under the sports section in the athletes category, Butker is ranked 8th, becoming the trending player of the year online.

Just a couple of days ago, Google announced the top 10 most searched athletes of the year. And Harrison Butker shines proudly, as he joined Mike Tyson (1st), Imane Khelif, Simone Biles, Scottie Scheffler, Jake Paul, Anthony Edwards, Caitlin Clark, Jordan Chiles, and Brandon Aiyuk, in the most searched celebrity player list.

Despite Travis Kelce‘s romantic affair with Taylor Swift and the Chiefs securing the playoffs early, neither he nor Patrick Mahomes made it to the most-searched list. Instead, they were surpassed by Brandon Aiyuk, who was in the spotlight this year for his contract extension pursuit. But Harrison Butker’s jump into the list, despite being on the injured reserve list since mid-November due to meniscus surgery, is surprising for many!

Why is Harrison Butker in the most-searched player of the year list?

Remember what he said about women? While being a commencement speaker at Kansas’ Benedictine College, a private Catholic liberal arts school, Harrison Butker congratulated the women who received their degrees in May. Everything was going fine by then. But what he said next perplexed everyone online and offline. He said about some Catholic leaders, who are “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.”

Explaining his point further, Harrison Butker elaborated, “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” Not only that!

He continued to embrace his wife, saying she received “one of the most important titles of all, Homemaker!” Now this fumed many feminists and women out there who see both personal and professional life as equally important. The result? Well, many women and online users, in fact Serena Williams too, came up to criticize Harrison Butker’s ideology.

Nevertheless, he later explained what he meant by his controversial comments, and admitted that for him no role is a diminishing one. So, now we know the reason why Harrison Butker has been a huge trend this year, leaving behind his teammates Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.