Claim:
In September 2025, Kansas City Chiefs Coach Andy Reid said he would refuse to attend the 2026 Super Bowl over a planned tribute to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Rating:
In late September 2025, Facebook posts claimed that Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid said he would refuse to attend the 2026 Super Bowl over a planned tribute to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
For example, one post (archived) shared on Sept. 28, 2025, read:
“Super Bowl Chaos: Andy Reid Refuses to Attend Over Politically Charged Tribute — NFL in Uproar”
This year’s Super Bowl kickoff was supposed to be routine. Instead, Kansas City head coach Andy Reid ignited one of the most explosive controversies in sports history. When Reid reviewed the NFL’s opening ceremony plan, he saw a tribute not to athletes — but to politicians like Charlie Kirk.
Reid, famed for his leadership on the field, refused to stand by. “I will lead my team on the field because they’ve earned it,” he said, “but I will not accept an event that tarnishes true patriotism. Don’t turn the Giants game into a clown show.”
The announcement sent shockwaves through the league. Other NFL veterans are echoing his concerns, warning that the Super Bowl risks becoming more about political agendas than sport, alienating coaches, players, and fans alike. Social media exploded, with supporters praising Reid for taking a stand and critics questioning the league’s priorities.
The big questions remain: Has the NFL allowed politics to overshadow the game? Are cultural ultimatums turning America’s biggest sporting event into a battleground? Reid himself asked, “If they keep pushing these demands, it’s less an opening ceremony and more a campaign. Where does the line come from?”
Click here to read the full story and see why Andy Reid’s bold stand has the NFL scrambling.
Another Facebook post (archived) making the same claim included identical text.
(Together We Rise on Facebook)
The posts (archived here and here) included links to advertisement-filled articles about Reid’s supposed boycott threat.
Some commenters appeared to take the story as fact. Multiple Snopes readers also searched our website and emailed us to verify whether the rumor was true.
The story was fabricated. Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no credible news reports supporting the claim that Reid refused to attend the upcoming Super Bowl over a tribute to Kirk. If the story were true, it would have been widely reported by reputable media outlets.
Snopes reached out to the Kansas City Chiefs for comment and will update this story should we receive a response.
While it’s unclear who authored the posts, they are part of a trend of sensational — but false — stories about celebrities shared on social media. The story was seemingly written to generate advertising revenue for the aforementioned websites linked to in the Facebook posts.
AI likely helped to create text
Unlike previous posts that spread similar false rumors, the images did not appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence (AI). However, the text in both the Facebook posts and attached articles did show signs of potential AI generation or assistance.
For example, the posts and articles contained over-the-top, emotionally charged language, such as “politically charged tribute,” “explosive controversies” and “sent shockwaves through the league.” This type of language is often found in AI-generated content that’s designed to elicit strong reactions and drive engagement.
The posts’ use of repeated rhetorical questions, such as, “Has the NFL allowed politics to overshadow the game?” and “Are cultural ultimatums turning America’s biggest sporting event into a battleground?,” is also a hallmark of AI-generated text. AI tools often use this technique to mimic natural human speech.
More red flags behind the rumor
Other evidence raised red flags about the Facebook posts’ claims.
For example, one post sharing the false rumor linked out to an article published on a website with a “USA News” logo. Websites using this same logo have previously published fabricated reports involving country music stars and MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes.
Additionally, several of the Facebook pages that spread the rumor about Reid previously shared a false claim that five country music stars refused to perform a planned tribute to Kirk at the 2026 Super Bowl.
Page transparency tabs for multiple Facebook pages that shared the false claim about Reid also revealed that at least one page owner was based in Vietnam — a country that has repeatedly appeared in research into fabricated, AI-generated stories tied to major news events and tragedies.
The same tab for another Facebook page that shared the false claim listed its owners as residing in the United States, Mexico and Nepal.
For further reading, we fact-checked a rumor that Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce donated his “entire” $12.9 million in bonuses and endorsements to the Homeless Housing Initiative.