Patrick Mahomes Won’t ‘Judge’ Harrison Butker’s Controversial Commencement Speech: He’s a ‘Good Person’

‘I’ve known him for seven years,’ Patrick said in a press conference as his teammate continues to face backlash.

Patrick Mahomes reacted to his teammate Harrison Butker‘s controversial commencement speech during a recent press conference. While speaking to reporters on Wednesday, May 22, the 28-year-old Kansas City Chiefs quarterback defended Harrison, 28, as a “good person.”

“I’ve known him for seven years. I judge him by the character he shows every single day, and that’s a good person,” Patrick said at the Chiefs’ OTAs practice that day. “That’s someone who cares about the people around him, cares about his family and wants to make a good impact in society.”

Patrick added that he’s only “gonna judge [Harrison] by the character that he shows every single day” and noted, “We’ll continue to move on and try to help build each other up to make ourselves better every single day.”

“But, at the end of the day, we’re gonna come together as a team, and I think that will help out as well as eliminate those distractions outside the building,” the athlete explained before pointing out that he doesn’t “agree” with everything that Harrison said. “When you’re in the locker room, there’s a lot of people from a lot of different areas of life, and they have a lot of different views on everything. We’re not always going to agree, and there’s certain things that he said that I don’t agree with, but I understand the person [who] he is and [that] he’s trying to do whatever he can to lead people in the right direction.”

Though Patrick doesn’t share the “same values” as Harrison, the QB pointed out that some of the social media videos of his teammate’s speech were “taken out of context.”

“At the end of the day, it’s about us taking the man and his values and everything that he does every single day and judging him by that, not by one moment or one speech,” Patrick concluded. “In the building, you can have those healthy discussions and still be friends even if you don’t agree [on] the exact same things.”

Earlier this month, Harrison delivered a controversial commencement address at Benedictine College, in which he derided the LGBTQIA+ community and said the “majority” of the female students were “most excited about [their] marriage and the children [they] will bring into this world.” Additionally, he slammed some of President Joe Biden‘s policies and women’s family-planning choices.

The speech sparked extensive backlash against Harrison, which has continued for several weeks across social media.