What if football players chose love instead of the game? : NPR

When the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles score touchdowns in the Super Bowl tomorrow, you might see that one of the end zones is stenciled with a message: CHOOSE LOVE. The other says, IT TAKES ALL OF US.

You may wonder: how are professional football players, who are paid gobs of money to bash, thrash, and smash each other before a vast, worldwide audience, supposed to represent choosing love?

The NFL may be aiming that sensitive message more at fans than players. But envisioning those creeds stenciled into the end zones moves me to imagine a different kind of
Super Bowl that might be played tomorrow.

Picture it: the game is about to begin when Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ vaunted quarterback, runs onto the field and shouts, “Brothers! Why are we here? To pummel, pound, and pounce on one another for so-called ‘entertainment’? To fatten the assets of team owners, shoe companies, beermakers, and sportsbook sites?”

Players stop in their cleats, to ponder his truly existential question. I imagine Saquon Barkley, the Eagles celebrated running back, stepping up.

“They call us rivals,” he cries out. “But verily, I say no! Why do we heed orders to run into each other, week after week, to win fleeting, fragile fame, when we know that only our noble brethren across the line of scrimmage truly understand and value us!”

“Brothers!” Travis Kelce, the Chief’s famed tight end, calls out. “Why do we whomp and wallop one another for mere points on a board? When, verily, as it is written in the end-zone, we should choose love!”

Chiefs then begin to call out to Eagles, “I love you, man!” The Eagles sob back to Chiefs, “You complete me!”

Patrick Mahomes opens his arms to both teams and the crowd to say, “It takes all of us!” Even Philadelphia fans in the stands embrace Kansas City fans, and don’t swipe their wallets.

The two Super Bowl teams suddenly see their highly-promoted competition as trivial stuff, compared to the great game of life. They heed the commandment in the end zone to choose love. The players then embrace at the 50-yard line, eyes brimming. And together, the Chiefs and Eagles sing:

“One Love! One Heart!
Let’s get together and feel all right.
Hear the children cryin’ (One Love!)
Hear the children cryin’ (One Heart!)
Sayin’: give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
Sayin’: let’s get together and feel all right. Wo wo-wo wo-wo!”