A Moment When Patrick Mahomes Seemed to Snub Samaje Perine Has Gone Viral Online

The Kansas City Chiefs are still reckoning with the aftermath of a devastating Super Bowl blowout to the Philadelphia Eagles. The loss was shocking to many who follow football. It also left those on the Chiefs devastated, especially because they wanted to win three Super Bowls in a row, a feat that had never been accomplished in the NFL before.

In the aftermath of the loss, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was seen hugging and giving high fives to many of his teammates. In a video that has now gone viral, he appears to ignore running back Samaje Perine, and many now want to know whether there was some reason for that. Here's what we know.

In the video, Patrick can be seen greeting JuJu Smith-Schuster and Hollywood Brown before sharing a hug with Isiah Pacheco. Samaje then stands up and seems to expect to be greeted by Patrick, but the quarterback instead skips him and shares a long embrace with Travis Kelce.

Some people have taken the video as evidence of Patrick's lack of leadership, suggesting that he should have embraced Samaje as he had done with the rest of the team.

Samaje has chimed in to say that it wasn't a big deal, though.

"Lol I actually stood up to untie my pants string, no one blamed anybody," Perine commented on a post of the video. "It’s not that deep."

If there was a reason that Samaje was snubbed in Mahomes's acknowledgment of his offensive teammates, it's not one that has come to light, and there was no play in the Super Bowl where he appeared to do anything wrong.

The likelier explanation is that Patrick locked in on Travis, who has been one of his most reliable teammates over the course of their historic run, and decided to focus on that relationship. It might have looked like a snub in real time, but it seems like Samaje didn't take it that way.

It's unclear whether he'll be back with the team next year, but that decision probably doesn't have much to do with whether he got a handshake from Patrick.

Although he was the third-string running back for the Chiefs, Samaje was involved in some crucial plays for the Chiefs during the 2024 season. Most importantly, he caught a pass from Mahomes on third down in the AFC Championship game against the Bills that sealed the Chiefs victory and allowed them to run out the clock. He was mainly used as a pass catcher out of the backfield throughout the season, although he did rush 20 times.

The Chiefs will head into the off-season for the first time in several years without a championship under their belt. What's worse, though, is that they didn't lose a close game. They got humiliated, leading some to wonder what this might signal about the Chiefs' prospects in the years to come.