Vice President JD Vance is a longtime Cincinnati Bengals fan to the extreme that he watched his team lose an AFC wild card game to the Pittsburgh Steelers – while he was serving in Iraq in January of 2006.
Well, on Wednesday, the Veep got a closer look of his favorite team when he visited at their training facility and watched parts of practice.
Vance toured the team’s locker room, shook hands with several players, coach Zac Taylor and others, and came away with a football. It is unclear if Vance brought the ball to be autographed or the club gave it to him as a memento.
The Trump administration is making a lot of campaign stops before the November 3 midterm elections and it seems athletes from all sports have been engaged and more than happy to tag along with the President and others.
And Super Bowl winning coach Jon Gruden attended a Trump rally in Ohio.
Wednesday, meanwhile, wasn’t the Bengals following Vance around. It was a Bengals fan following the team he’s loved since he was a boy.
The strange thing about this visit, though, was that Vance didn’t interact with quarterback Joe Burrow, who is undoubtedly the biggest star on the team.
The two didn’t talk at all.
“We did not,” Burrow told reporters. “We did not. He came with everybody and left with swiftness and efficiency before the end of practice, so I didn’t get to.”
Burrow turned a question about what happened while Vance was at practice into a statement about himself.
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“Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people around, you know, that’s what I love about what I do is, it brings a lot of people together, and people want to take time out of their day to come and watch what we do, watch what I do, and watch all the work that I’ve put in to come and watch greatness, and that’s everybody in the locker room,” Burrow said.
“That’s why we do what we do, and whether it’s on the TV, whether it’s in person, whether it’s on the practice field, and that’s what we do.”
Yes, we now understand who Burrow believes the stars are when the vice president of the country visits.
Vance arrived in a motorcade befitting a world leader – six black SUVs, some police vehicles, and some motorcycle cops.
His SUV (mini-tank?) rolled past a back gate at the Kettering Health practice fields adjacent to Paycor Stadium.
Vance is a Middletown, Ohio native. He has a home in Cincinnati’s East Walnut Hills neighborhood so he was obviously feeling quite at home when he arrived in town to deliver a speech at the FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office and then hold a campaign rally at the Sharonville Convention Center.