Khalen Saunders Credit: ESPN
By Sean Keeley on

Patrick Mahomes had the Kansas City Chiefs rolling for much of Monday night’s contest against the New Orleans Saints. However, an interception in the endzone by defensive tackle Khalen Saunders disrupted their efforts while bringing joy to the NFL broadcasters who got to call it.

The Chiefs led 16-7 with under two minutes left in the 3rd quarter when Mahomes dropped back to pass for an easy touchdown. However, the ball popped out of JuJu Smith-Schuster’s hands and right toward Saunders. The beefy DT then rumbled out of the endzone to the 35-yard line.

We have to start with the call by ESPN’s Monday Night Football announcer Joe Buck, who exuberantly shouted out “BIG KHALEN RUMBLIN’!”

However, all due respect has to go to Kevin Harlan, who was calling the game for Westwood Radio, for the best call of the night. After calling the play, the legendary announcer realized what he’d witnessed and exclaimed “IT WAS A THICC PICK! THAT WAS A THICC PICK!”

Unfortunately for noted Chiefs fan Paul Rudd, the thicc-pick happened while he was a guest on ESPN2’s ManningCast. The Hollywood actor immediately blamed himself for tempting the football gods with his prediction that Schuster would score.

A fun sidenote to all of this is that Saunders’s brother, Kameron Saunders, is a backup dancer for Taylor Swift, the girlfriend of Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce. On the play right before the interception, Khalen put a big hit on Kelce to prevent a score. Guessing all of this will come up before Swift’s next concert performance.

[ESPN, Westwood One]

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

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