OutKick⁠97%

Was Patrick Mahomes Smiling After The Broncos Beat The Chiefs? You Be The Judge⁠91%

By Austin Perry⁠0%

12/26/2025, 1:32:55 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Pessimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 55.4% saturation with 220 hits. Analysis detected 1,233 faulty-reasoning hits from 397 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 84.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠91% (2,030 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 90.70% of the article peer group.

Not a good look for Mahomes if it turns out to be true. 
Things couldn't have gone much worse for the Kansas City Chiefs this season. 
After their loss to the Chargers last weekend, KC is set to miss the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. 
And, to add insult to injury — literally — their star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, went down for the rest of the year and potentially beyond with an ACL tear. 
As if that wasn't bad enough, their defeat on Christmas day at the hands of division rival Denver saw some extra spice being added from Mahomes' box in the waning minutes of the game. 
With the Chiefs and Broncos tied at 13 apiece late in the fourth quarter, Denver quarterback Bo Nix engineered what would end up being the game-winning drive, capped off by a touchdown pass to running back RJ Harvey in the back of the end zone. 
While the play itself was demoralizing for a Chiefs fanbase and organization that was just looking for a little positivity going into the last few games of the season, what happened in the expensive seats of Arrowhead Stadium was even worse. 
Is that Patrick Mahomes SMILING in his luxury suite as the Broncos take the lead over his "beloved" Chiefs?! 
My first thought when seeing this was surely this is engagement farming and someone had just spliced a clip of Mahomes from earlier in the game. 
But if you look in the background at the TV in Mahomes' box, you'll see a replay of the touchdown from the broadcast. 
That's a super tough look for the Chiefs and their quarterback, but again, he could have been smiling at anything. 
It's truly a modern-day Rorschach Test; anyone can see what they want and no one will ever really know what he was smiling at in the moment. 
That didn't stop fans from both sides of the aisle weighing in on "Smilegate" all over X. 
Between Mahomes and his family and tight end Travis Kelce's relationship with pop star Taylor Swift, the Chiefs are turning into quite the circus, so the last thing they need is another controversy, real or fabricated. 
Here's hoping Mahomes' smile/grimace was just gas from the stadium nachos, otherwise Kansas City will have more problems on their hands than just missing the playoffs once in a blue moon. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.8%Outkick: 0.6%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 6.5%Austin Perry: 3.4%Outkick: 1.9%Anchoring Bias6.5%This article: 9.1%Austin Perry: 8.8%Outkick: 5.3%Availability Heuristic9.1%This article: 6.8%Austin Perry: 0.8%Outkick: 0.4%Blind-Spot Bias6.8%This article: 17.4%Austin Perry: 10.4%Outkick: 8.8%Confirmation Bias17.4%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.0%Outkick: 0.1%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 35.8%Austin Perry: 14.6%Outkick: 12.5%Framing Effect35.8%This article: 13.1%Austin Perry: 5.4%Outkick: 3.2%Fundamental Attribution Error13.1%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 5.6%Outkick: 5.2%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 1.1%Outkick: 1.9%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 13.1%Austin Perry: 2.5%Outkick: 1.3%Horn Effect13.1%This article: 4.3%Austin Perry: 11.6%Outkick: 5.1%In-Group Bias4.3%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 2.1%Outkick: 1.0%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 55.4%Austin Perry: 17.1%Outkick: 12.8%Negativity Bias55.4%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 7.2%Outkick: 4.4%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 9.1%Austin Perry: 5.5%Outkick: 2.8%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias9.1%This article: 3.3%Austin Perry: 5.2%Outkick: 6.1%Overconfidence Bias3.3%This article: 21.4%Austin Perry: 3.4%Outkick: 2.5%Pessimism Bias21.4%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.4%Outkick: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 5.8%Austin Perry: 5.4%Outkick: 3.4%Recency Bias5.8%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 2.5%Outkick: 2.0%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 6.5%Austin Perry: 4.4%Outkick: 3.2%Self-Serving Bias6.5%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 2.6%Outkick: 1.3%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.2%Outkick: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 4.8%Austin Perry: 5.7%Outkick: 4.0%Ad Hominem4.8%This article: 30.5%Austin Perry: 1.0%Outkick: 1.8%Ambiguity (Equivocation)30.5%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 10.4%Outkick: 4.3%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 3.7%Outkick: 3.6%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 4.8%Austin Perry: 16.4%Outkick: 10.0%Appeal to Emotion4.8%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.1%Outkick: 0.3%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 4.3%Austin Perry: 4.6%Outkick: 2.4%Bandwagon4.3%This article: 4.8%Austin Perry: 2.7%Outkick: 1.7%Begging the Question4.8%This article: 3.3%Austin Perry: 0.4%Outkick: 0.5%Burden of Proof3.3%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.1%Outkick: 0.3%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 9.1%Austin Perry: 0.6%Outkick: 0.3%Composition/Division9.1%This article: 7.8%Austin Perry: 3.2%Outkick: 2.3%False Dilemma7.8%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.0%Outkick: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 1.5%Outkick: 0.7%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 9.1%Austin Perry: 19.1%Outkick: 11.5%Hasty Generalization9.1%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.7%Outkick: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 1.0%Outkick: 0.4%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 7.8%Austin Perry: 1.0%Outkick: 0.7%Personal Incredulity7.8%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 2.5%Outkick: 2.9%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 9.1%Austin Perry: 2.4%Outkick: 1.2%Red Herring9.1%This article: 7.8%Austin Perry: 2.3%Outkick: 1.1%Slippery Slope7.8%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 1.6%Outkick: 1.0%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 2.4%Outkick: 2.0%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Austin Perry: 0.2%Outkick: 0.3%Tu Quoque0.0%

397 words analyzed.

Speakers

No attributed speakers were identified in this analysis.

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Analysis

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