SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Jon Hamm first attended the NFL Honors, the league’s annual awards show was still finding its footing. It was a relatively new addition to Super Bowl week that had yet to fully define what it would become.
Now, the Emmy-winning actor will take the stage as host as the NFL Honors mark their 15th anniversary on Thursday night in San Francisco. The show, airing on NBC and NFL Network, will serve as a capstone to the season just days before the Super Bowl.
“They didn’t really know what it was going to be, but it was fun,” Hamm said Wednesday after rehearsals at the Palace of Fine Arts. The actor said he enjoyed watching Alec Baldwin host the first-ever ceremony in 2012.
Hamm brings an extensive hosting experience to the role, having previously led shows ranging from Saturday Night Live to the ESPYs. But he said the NFL Honors require a specific approach.
“We’re not trying to break new ground in comedy or make anything that’s going to offend anybody,” said Hamm, who won a 2015 Primetime Emmy for his portrayal of Don Draper on AMC's “Mad Men.” He's also appeared in projects including “30 Rock,” “The Morning Show" and now the Apple TV Plus series “Your Friends & Neighbors.”
“We’re here to celebrate the players and their season and then push everybody into a good mood ... I think it’s going to be a pretty good Super Bowl,” he said.
Hamm said the NFL Honors have grown into something meaningful for players across the league, especially those whose accomplishments are not always tied to postseason success. He pointed to standout individual achievements that still deserve recognition.
“You got guys like Myles Garrett breaking the sack record,” Hamm said. “He ain’t sniffing the Super Bowl, but it’s still something to be celebrated, right?”
The NFL Honors have evolved into a night players anticipate, Hamm said, in part because of the rare opportunity it gives them to gather in one place.
“They’re in a room with their peers. Everybody knows everybody,” he said. “They only play 17, 18 games. … It’s nice for them to get celebrated the way they should.”
A lifelong football fan, Hamm grew up in St. Louis following the Cardinals and Rams before later rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs. Hosting the ceremony, he said, means stepping back from team allegiances.
“It’s not about one team,” Hamm said. “It’s about honoring the season.”
Beyond football, Hamm said Super Bowl week reflects a larger cultural moment, including the rise of global music stars such as Bad Bunny, who is set to headline the Super Bowl halftime show after coming off a major Grammys night — where his project ”Debí Tirar Más Fotos” won album of year. It’s the first time an all Spanish-language album has taken home the top prize.
"I was happy to see his success at the Grammys,” said Hamm, who attended Bad Bunny's historic residency in 2025. He and the Puerto Rican superstar have become friends and even share the same birthday.
“He was beautifully eloquent. … He’s a very intelligent guy. He’s a wonderful artist, number one streamed artist in the world for a reason,” he said. “He’s smart enough to realize that engagement is the key. So I applaud him as an artist and as a fellow Pisces and a fellow March 10 birthday man. He’s a good dude.”
As the NFL Honors celebrate their milestone year, Hamm said the night is ultimately about bringing people together before the Super Bowl matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. He said the ceremony is a gathering point during the week.
“The appetizer,” he said. “That’s what it is.”
For more on the Super Bowl, visit https://apnews.com/hub/nfl.
FILE - Jon Hamm attends the world premiere of "F1 The Movie" on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Times Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP,File)
MILAN (AP) — Vice President JD Vance landed in Milan with his family Thursday, the first stop on a trip combining diplomacy and sports where he is leading President Donald Trump's delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics and later stopping in Armenia and Azerbaijan in a show of support for a peace agreement brokered by the White House last year.
The weeklong trip may be one of only a few international trips Vance makes this year. Trump and his Cabinet members are taking a tighter focus on domestic issues — and domestic travel — heading into the November midterm elections, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said last month.
On Thursday, Vance plans to meet with U.S. athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Games, and later plans to watch the U.S. women’s hockey team take on Czechia in a preliminary game.
At the opening ceremony for the games on Friday, the vice president will lead a U.S. delegation that includes his wife, second lady Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta. Former Olympic gold medalists will also be in the delegation, including hockey player sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando; speedskater Apolo Ohno and figure skater Evan Lysacek.
Vance is following in the footsteps of former vice presidents Joe Biden who attended the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 and Mike Pence who traveled to Pyeongchang, Korea in 2018. Former Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing because the Biden administration did not send any diplomatic officials as a boycott over human rights concerns.
After Italy, Vance plans to head to Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Trump has tasked him with building on a deal aimed at ending four decades of conflict between the two countries.
The peace agreement boosts the position of the U.S. in the region at a time when Russia’s influence is declining. The two former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, agreed under the deal to reopen key transportation routes and bolster cooperation with the United States in energy, technology and the economy. The deal also calls for the creation of a major transit corridor dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It is expected to connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) patch of Armenian territory.
Vance’s mission on the trip to further the peace effort is similar to an assignment he took on in October, when he traveled to Israel weeks after a ceasefire was negotiated in its war with Hamas in Gaza, reiterating the Trump administration’s commitment to the effort.
In addition to the Israel stop last year, Vance made trips to France, Germany, Greenland, India, and the U.K. He twice visited Italy, meeting Pope Francis before his death, and later, his successor Pope Leo XIV.
While presidents focus their foreign travel on meetings with some of the U.S.’s biggest allies, vice presidents often are called on to make trips a little off the beaten path. Biden, for example, went to Mongolia in 2011, where he tried some archery and was gifted a horse. In 2017, Pence visited Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro, where he affirmed support for NATO, along with participating in symbolic diplomacy with the planting of an oak tree.
For vice presidents, foreign trips are partly “a function of what the president likes to do — and not like to do,” said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Pence during Trump’s first term.
Sometimes, trips can include unexpected elements, such as Pence's 2018 trip to the East Asia Summit in Singapore that included an informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Short also recalled a 2019 trip to Poland where Pence was called to fill in for the president who stayed home to monitor Hurricane Dorian. That trip involved a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The reality, obviously, is the president has a lot of other responsibilities,” Short said, “So it’s often important that the United States be represented by the highest official available. In many cases, that’s just the vice president.”
Vice President JD Vance waves as he and second lady Usha Vance board Air Force Two to travel to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, from Joint Base Andrews, Md., Feb. 4, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP)
