JuJu Smith-Schuster of the Kansas City Chiefs credited Call of Duty with playing a major role in helping his team to a victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
In his post-game press conference, Smith-Schuster said his time in training camp and the preseason helped build a level of chemistry between him and other Chiefs players like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. But it was a video game – Call of Duty: Warzone – that Smith-Schuster credits for helping his team win Sunday.
Believe it or not, communication does play a big part in winning “Warzone” or any type of online game. How that translates to an NFL offense is an inexact science, but the proof might be there for Kansas City.
Mahomes said he doesn’t often play “Call of Duty,” but had an opportunity on Friday, leading to the back-to-back-to-back wins – and the Chiefs’ best offensive performance of the 2022 season on Sunday.
What Smith-Schuster said
“I’m going to tell you what got us the chemistry that we needed this game,” Smith-Schuster told reporters after Sunday’s seven-catch, 124-yard performance. “I think it was Friday night. It was me, Pat, Travis and MVS [that were] were playing ‘Call of Duty.’ We were playing ‘Warzone.’ We played three games – and we won three games back-to-back.”
Warzone is – much like football – a complicated game with a simple objective: outlast your opponents until you’re the last team standing. As Smith-Schuster explained, you can’t win without constant communication and an understanding of where your teammates are.
“We got off and were like, ‘Damn,'” Smith-Schuster joked. “It’s really hard to win a game in ‘Warzone.’ You could just tell that the communication between all of us and the chemistry, it was like we were in a [football] game… It kind of just bled into this game.”