Being the villain, bad narratives, and the Chiefs
It's been an interesting week in Chiefs discourse. Let's talk about how bad thought processes spread and become "common knowledge."
The Chiefs are the NFL’s villain.
This has been true for quite some time. In fact, I wrote about the idea as far back as 2020, when Patrick Mahomes and company were on their quest to repeat as Super Bowl champions. As we all know, that particular effort fell short, and as the Chiefs went two whole years without hoisting a Lombardi Trophy (an eternity!), the “villain” talk quieted down a bit.
Since that time, of course, the Chiefs have now won back-to-back Super Bowls in 2022 and 2023, the latter of which was following a “down” year and with an improbable run through the very best the NFL had to offer in the playoffs (including on the road in Buffalo and Baltimore, with a finale against a favored 49ers squad). And there are of course the (ahem) additional factors that have made Travis Kelce somehow even more famous than his superstar quarterback.
All that winning and all that fame turns a team into a villain to the rest of the league. It’s actually a lot more fun to watch than I thought it would be. The hatred grows from your own division (the Chiefs have won the AFC West an incredible 8 consecutive seasons and are closing in on a 9th) to extending all across the NFL. And that’s understandable. Wouldn’t YOU hate someone who constantly ripped your heart… while telling you what they’re doing as they do it?
(That “I’m like that” trash talk is the greatest video clip in human history and I’ll never be convinced otherwise)
Fanbases in Buffalo, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, San Francisco, Miami, Tennessee, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and Philadelphia have watched their seasons end at the hands of the Chiefs during the Mahomes era. That’s a little over a third of the league, which is a bananas stat. Further, while they haven’t been anything close to a rival of Kansas City’s in years, Patriots fans consistently demonstrate a healthy hatred towards Mahomes due to his imminent threat to Tom Brady’s legacy as the undisputed GOAT (fair).
Between all those playoff heartbreaks, divisional dominance, and worried Boston residents, you end up with half the league spending a great deal of their time seething about the the Chiefs’ continuing to win game after game. And starting last season, this brought about one of the more entertaining conspiracy theories I’ve seen related to the NFL; That the league/refs/SOMEONE is somehow rigging games in favor of the Chiefs. Because it can’t just be that they’re more talented, more prepared, better coached and in better position to take advantage of their opportunities… right? It can’t be that luck plays a role for all teams, and some just maximize those chances, right?
RIGHT?
If you spend any time online (my condolences) you’ve seen it. The constant… I don’t want to say whining, but… venting regarding the idea that the Chiefs get “all the calls.” The screenshots of purported holds (or non-holds) or yet another relatively subjective penalty that OF COURSE went the Chiefs way. The theories that the NFL is somehow catering to Swifties (a personal favorite of mine). And so on, and so forth.
The complaints have existed for years (really starting to get loud following the Chiefs’ Super Bowl LVII), but reached what I’d assumed to be a crescendo last season down the stretch. I didn’t think it was possible for Kansas City to be any more hated than they were following Super Bowl LVIII, as 49ers fans screamed into the abyss about the unfairness of… I don’t know what, to be perfectly honest. Perfectly executed game-winning drives, perhaps? Maybe having an answer to 3rd down pressure packages?
Who knows, but I thought there was no way that the Chiefs could be any more the villain than they were at the time.
I was wrong.