The Moment
Patrick Mahomes has done the unthinkable: he put ketchup on the Thanksgiving turkey – on purpose, on camera, and with corporate backing.
In a new Adidas holiday spot, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback sits at a cozy, candle-lit Thanksgiving table loaded with the usual suspects: turkey, sides, the whole Norman Rockwell spread. He gives a sweet little speech about going home, seeing family, meeting new friends… and then reaches for the most controversial bottle in America.
Yup. He squeezes ketchup all over a turkey leg like it’s a drive-thru burger, then deadpans, “Thanksgiving is a time to eat.” Somewhere, a thousand grandmothers clutched their gravy boats at once.
Clips of the ad hit social media, and the comments section immediately turned into a food court trial. One viewer asked, “Did he put ketchup on that turkey leg???” Another skipped straight to the verdict: “Disgusting!” Others begged him to “chill on the ketchup.”
Of course, a loyal few jumped in to defend their condiment king. “I also put ketchup on everything,” one fan wrote, chalking it up to an East Texas thing. Another cheered, “The Return of the Ketchup. Love it PM! Go Chiefs!”
Love it or loathe it, Mahomes just hijacked the Thanksgiving conversation, and it wasn’t about politics for once. Small blessings.
The Take
I’m going to say the quiet part out loud: this is exactly the kind of scandal Patrick Mahomes should be having.
No arrests. No mystery bruises. No messy PR statements. Just a generational quarterback squirt-bottling ketchup on a turkey leg like a 10-year-old at Golden Corral. If only every NFL controversy were this squeezable.
Is ketchup on turkey objectively horrifying to many of us? Absolutely. Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when we pretend dry poultry is sacred, and we honor it with gravy, not a ballpark condiment. But Mahomes has been open for years about having the taste buds of a teenage boy left alone with a microwave. Steak, mac and cheese, childhood ketchup sandwiches – this man is committed to the bit.
And that’s the key: this is branding as lifestyle, not accident. Adidas didn’t just catch Mahomes sneaking sauce; they built an entire holiday ad around his most chaotic food habit. It’s like if your cousin who puts ranch on everything suddenly got a sneaker deal and a national commercial to prove it.
Fans calling him a food criminal? That’s the point. The more people gag-tweet “ketchup on turkey?!” the more this ad lives rent-free in everyone’s heads. It’s mildly gross, completely harmless, and perfectly meme-able – the pop-culture trifecta.
If Taylor Swift turned the tight end into a lifestyle accessory, Mahomes is turning the condiment aisle into a personality trait. The man has two Super Bowl rings, a half-billion-dollar contract, and now a holiday food hill he’s willing to die on – apparently covered in ketchup.
So is it weird? Yes. Is it working? Also yes. Your dad’s yelling at the TV about it, your group chat has opinions, and somewhere an 11-year-old just got emboldened to dip their turkey in ketchup and say, “Mahomes does it.” That’s influence.
Receipts
Confirmed:
- Mahomes appears in a new Adidas Thanksgiving-themed ad where he pours ketchup over a turkey leg and says, “Thanksgiving is a time to eat,” as seen in the officially posted reel on Adidas’ social media on November 27, 2025.
- His long-running obsession with ketchup is real: in 2018 he became an ambassador for Hunt’s Tomatoes and Ketchup, and he publicly admitted to putting ketchup on foods like steak and macaroni and cheese, and even eating ketchup sandwiches as a kid, according to brand announcements and widely reported interviews that year.
- Fans reacted online with a mix of disgust and solidarity, with comments like “Did he put ketchup on that turkey leg???” and “I also put ketchup on everything,” captured in coverage of the ad on November 27, 2025.
- Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are scheduled to play the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving, with the team coming off a win over the Indianapolis Colts.
Unverified / Just Jokes:
- A fan quipped that “just by him doing that, the Chiefs will lose.” That’s a joke, not an actual prediction with any evidence behind it.
- Claims that putting ketchup on turkey is a specifically “East Texas” thing are fan opinions, not a documented regional culinary tradition.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you haven’t been following the Mahomes-ketchup saga, here’s the short version. Patrick Mahomes, star quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs and one of the NFL’s biggest names, has quietly been waging war on culinary norms for years. Around 2018, he went viral for admitting he puts ketchup on steak and mac and cheese. That ketchup chatter turned into a real business move when he partnered with Hunt’s as a brand ambassador, leaning into his “I put ketchup on everything” reputation instead of hiding it.
Since then, his condiment habits have become part of his public persona – the rare “controversy” that’s mostly lighthearted. Now Adidas has folded that ketchup love into a Thanksgiving commercial, taking what used to be a quirky interview tidbit and turning it into official, big-budget branding.
What’s Next
Short term, expect this clip to live all over social media all Thanksgiving weekend. Every time the Chiefs play – especially in that holiday game against the Cowboys – you can bet TV producers will happily roll the ketchup-turkey footage like it’s game tape.
Brand-wise, don’t be shocked if ketchup keeps following Mahomes around. Limited-edition bottles, ketchup-red merch, tongue-in-cheek food collabs – once a superstar leans into a quirk this hard, the marketing machine usually doesn’t stop at one ad.
On the football side, the only thing that will truly decide whether people remember this as “funny little ad” or “jinx of the season” is how Mahomes and the Chiefs perform. If they torch the Cowboys on Thanksgiving, ketchup on turkey becomes a lucky charm. If they flop, your uncle will blame the bottle instead of the offensive line.
Either way, Mahomes has successfully turned a basic holiday plate into a national debate. At this point, the only real question is whether you’re Team Gravy or Team Ketchup – or quietly Team “Please, just salt the bird this year.”
Over to you: would you ever put ketchup on Thanksgiving turkey, or is this where even celebrity worship has to draw the line?
Comments