New D&D Actual Play Stars Kansas City Chiefs NFL Players

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In one of the most unusual collaborations in Dungeons & Dragons history, six NFL players from the Superbowl winning Kansas City Chiefs defensive line swapped strip sacks for saving throws in a new one shot D&D actual play entitled “Dungeons & Defense.“

The episode was published on December 27th, 2025 on the official Chiefs’ YouTube channel and stars players Chris Jones, Mike Pennel, George Karlaftis, Derrick Nnadi, Mike Danna and Ashton Gillotte. The Dungeon Master is noted cosplayer, actor and actual play veteran Anna Margaret.

So just what when the critical hits move from the field to the tabletop? Below, we tackle all the details.

What is the Dungeons & Defense actual play about?

Dungeons & Defense is 1 hour actual play episode that features six well known Kansas City Chiefs’ defensive players. The adventure is a one shot that starts off with the heroes meeting in the Copper Kettle tavern in the town of Bramblewick where they are tasked with retrieving a magical orb that was stolen from an ancient sect of clerics. The heroes must then travel to a nearby mountain to confront a powerful sorceress and her minions.

The players and their characters are as follows:

Defensive Tackle Mike Pennel as Lord Osiris the Elf Bard
Defensive Tackle Chris Jones as Bogart the Dragonborn Paladin
Defensive End George Karlaftis as George the Furious, a Dwarf Barbarian

What other connections are there between D&D and the NFL?

While we haven’t seen any other official NFL actual play productions like this before, there are actually several prominent NFL players who are also avid D&D fans. In particular, former Cleveland Browns fullback Johnny Stanton has been a longtime player, including producing his own third-party D&D 5e products and actively promoting the game. In fact, Stanton was the DM for a long running D&D campaign with fellow Browns’ players Myles Garrett, Wyatt Teller and Kendall Lamm. The group participated in several D&D charity games and was featured in a widely shared Sports Illustrated story.

It’s also worth noting that in the Chiefs aren’t the only professional sports team from Kansas City with a TTRPG tie-in. In fact, in August 2025, the Kansas City Royals MLB team featured a Tabletop RPG Night at the stadium which included free dice and an adventure module for use with D&D 5e.

Final thoughts

For a game that was once considered synonymous with basement dwelling nerds who avoided sports, it’s amazing to see a group of professional athletes actively embracing the best aspects of Dungeons & Dragons. And while it’s not clear if there will be any other episodes in the future (or if other NFL teams will produce their own similar actual plays), if nothing else, it’s a fun and highly entertaining watch that shows just how mainstream D&D has become.

You can check out the episode below, which is hosted on the official Kansas City Chiefs’ YouTube channel.