Tom Cruise turned up at Arrowhead Stadium on Monday night and wound up with the kind of seat most people only dream about: next to Taylor Swift for Chiefs-Broncos on “Monday Night Football.”
Cruise was spotted with Swift and talking to her during the first quarter of the game in Kansas City, where the Chiefs were hosting the Broncos. Swift was there to support husband Travis Kelce as he begins what could be his final season.
Why Cruise showed up wasn’t immediately clear. What is clear is that he’s no stranger to big sports stages. The actor has long been linked to sports fandom, and he was part of Fox’s Super Bowl 59 broadcast when he appeared in an introductory video before the Chiefs met the Eagles two seasons ago.
He also isn’t known to live near Kansas City, which makes the timing and the setting stand out even more. Still, the chance to take in one of the week’s biggest matchups beside a global superstar is not exactly a hard sell.
As for whether Cruise is actually a Chiefs fan, that doesn’t appear to be the case. He hasn’t publicly committed to a specific team, though Jimmy Kimmel said in 2022 that Cruise is a Giants fan. That would track with Cruise being born in upstate New York and going to high school in New Jersey.
If that’s the team he roots for, Week 1 likely left him in a good mood. And if he was sitting in Swift’s suite at Arrowhead on Monday night, he probably had to borrow Chiefs loyalty for at least one evening.
In Other News...
Sean Payton Tries To Shut Down Strange Broncos Drew Brees Speculation
When Bo Nix went down in the AFC Championship game, the Broncos were already dealing with the kind of quarterback uncertainty that can turn even the strangest rumor into something that gets legs fast. That was the backdrop for the chatter tying Drew Brees to Denver, a story that made sense only in the broadest, most desperate sense: a retired franchise icon with deep ties to Sean Payton and a team suddenly looking for answers on the biggest stage.
Payton moved to cool it off quickly, saying Brees had reached out to former Broncos assistants Pete Carmichael and Joe Lombardi, but the idea never made its way to him directly and never moved beyond that. Even so, the mere existence of the conversation raises a separate concern because Brees remains on the Saints' reserve retired list, which puts any flirtation with a comeback in a very delicate spot under NFL tampering rules. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Defense Has A Week 2 Problem Fans Can't Ignore
The Broncos loss to Kansas City wasnt just about missed chances on offense or a few breakdowns here and there on defense. It was the tackling. Denver missed 29.8 percent of its tackles in the defeat, the worst tackling rate in an NFL game since 2018, and the issue showed up all over the field as the Chiefs kept turning routine plays into extended gains.
Several Broncos, including Talanoa Hufanga and Justin Strnad, acknowledged the problem afterward, and the fix sounds straightforward enough in theory: more tackling work before the next game. Still, the damage was obvious against Kansas City, especially with Walker piling up 144 yards after contact, a reminder that Denvers defensive front and second level will be under scrutiny until it proves the missed tackles were a one-game collapse rather than a pattern. [Read more 🡒]
Mahomes Just Added Another Worry For Broncos Fans
Patrick Mahomes was back in uniform for Kansas City on Sunday, nine months after surgery to repair a torn ACL and LCL in his left knee, and the Broncos saw plenty of the version of him they have spent years trying to slow down. He scored on a rushing touchdown and helped the Chiefs roll past Denver 31-10, a reminder that even after a major knee injury, Mahomes can still change a game with his legs as well as his arm.
For Broncos fans, the postgame tone probably offered the most unsettling part of all. Mahomes said he felt good after returning, while also admitting there was some nervousness about taking another hit to the leg, which is exactly the kind of concern Denver would rather not hear as the rivalry moves forward. [Read more 🡒]