Did Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid say, as of May 23, 2024, that he will resign if the Chiefs fire kicker Harrison Butker, adding "If they get rid of Harrison, they get rid of me"? No, that's not true: While it was reported in May 2024 that Reid said he supports Butker's right to his opinions, the quote attributed to Reid in a social media post is fabricated. The fake quote appeared in a post on the Facebook account of America's Last Line of Defense, a satirical network of entertainment websites and social media accounts that publish fictional content.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post on May 18, 2024. The caption stated:
TheChiefs have been hinting that they're planning on releasing the kicker, but Head Coach Andy Reed says no way.
'I'm not losing a great kicker to this whole woke thing. Not on my watch.'
Above a side-by-side image of Reid and Butker, the text in the image of this post read:
Andy Reed Says He'll Stand With Harrison Butker:
'If They Get Rid of Harrison, They Get Rid of Me'
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu May 23 23:08:19 2024 UTC)
The post comes from a site that is part of a network of satire accounts. Each site in the network carries a line that says, "Everything on this website is fiction." There are other signs undercutting the factual credibility of the site: Reid's last name is misspelled Reed in this post's caption and image.
While People magazine has reported that the National Football League has publicly distanced itself from the controversy surrounding a speech Butker made at Benedictine College on May 11, 2024, and there is an active online petition calling for the Chiefs to remove Butker from the team for his remarks in the controversial speech, the Chiefs have not released any statements on the controversy as of this writing, and Reid has not publicly threatened to resign in solidarity with Butker.
In a May 22, 2024, Washington Post article titled, "Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid defend Harrison Butker: 'We all get along,'" it was reported that Reid had not spoken to Butker about his comments in the speech as he "didn't think he needed to." While Reid is quoted a few more times in this article sharing sentiments such as, "I don't think he was speaking ill to women, but he has his opinions, and we all respect that," Reid ultimately never said anything about resigning in his efforts to support Butker.
Under the categories section on the About page of the America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) account, it reads:
Satire/Parody · Entertainment website
Other fact check agencies have also reviewed this claim, including Snopes, USA Today, Microsoft Network and PolitiFact.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to Harrison Butker can be found here.
ALLOD
The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. He runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
When fact checkers point this out to the people liking and sharing these copycat stories some of them get mad at the fact checkers instead of directing their anger at the foreign spammers or the liberal satire writers. Others send a polite "thank you" note, which is much appreciated.
