KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) – George Kittle, a tight end for the San Francisco 49ers, reached out to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes for help with a silly question on Friday.
“If tomatoes are a fruit, is ketchup a smoothie?” Kittle asked his Twitter followers.
Kittle, an All-Pro tight end, followed up by tagging Mahomes, asking for his input. After all, Mahomes is, famously, a ketchup lover.
“@PatrickMahomes I think this is an area of your expertise sir,” Kittle wrote.
Instead of an answer to the question, Mahomes responded with a strong declaration against tomatoes.
“As a ketchup enthusiast … tomatoes are garbage,” Mahomes responded.
ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky chimed in to agree with the Chiefs signal caller. He responded with a popular GIF of Denzel Washington saying, “My man.”
Plenty of Mahomes’ fans, perhaps not surprisingly, also agreed with his sentiments. But others were dumbfounded by his take.
“To be a ketchup enthusiast and say tomatoes are trash would be like saying you like peanut butter but hate peanuts,” one Twitter user argued.
“Bro … you’re the man. But how do you miss so badly on this?” another fan asked. “Tomatoes are great. Ketchup is ehh.”
“A good tomato can change the entire dynamic of a sammich,” someone else offered.
It’s unlikely that any of Mahomes’ critics were able to change his mind. The quarterback’s love for ketchup dates back to his MVP season, when it became public knowledge that he puts ketchup on steak. The ensuing “backlash,” however, earned Mahomes a sponsorship deal with Hunt’s Ketchup in 2018.