Are the Chiefs of their villain period?
It’s a label that’s been utilized advert nauseam heading into the Tremendous Bowl, by each followers and anti-fans of the long-dominant soccer staff. The Kansas Metropolis juggernauts will face off towards the Philadelphia Eagles in what would be the Chiefs’ fifth journey to the championship in six years. In the event that they win, they’ll be the primary NFL staff in historical past to win three back-to-back Tremendous Bowls.
Sounds thrilling, proper? In actual fact, simply 5 years in the past, Kansas Metropolis have been overwhelmingly thought-about darlings of the NFL. So why has public sentiment turned towards them so, er, swiftly? (Sorry.)
The reply actually isn’t all simply Taylor and Travis. In actual fact, simply because it was when the Patriots have been popular culture’s favourite antiheroes, the explanations for audiences’ rising animosity towards the Chiefs are much more sophisticated than you would possibly anticipate. Not like the Patriots backlash, nevertheless, present pique towards the Kansas Metropolis footballers intersects with a few bigger sudden social points. Let’s break it down.
Issue No. 1: They are surely that good
It’s no secret that followers simply flip to hating the dominant staff of their respective sport. That holds true throughout sports activities and franchises, from the notoriety of the Patriots, to the Warriors of their divisive Kevin Durant period, to everybody’s perennial faves the Yankees — arguably the platonic excellent of a franchise that’s hated largely for its longstanding success.
Like lots of these different groups, the Chiefs’ unimaginable dominance didn’t come out of nowhere. In 2013, below their new hires, basic supervisor John Dorsey and head coach Andy Reid, the franchise underwent what Pete Sweeney, the editor-in-chief of SB Nation’s Chiefs fan website Arrowhead Satisfaction, referred to as “some of the unprecedented roster reversals and file reversals in NFL historical past.” This was a shift that additional paid off when present Chiefs basic supervisor Brett Veach, then a staff scout, satisfied Dorsey to draft Patrick Mahomes in 2017. Veach had adopted — nay, obsessed over — Mahomes because the quarterback’s highschool profession, and his instincts instantly proved right. Mix Mahomes’s offensive expertise with the methods of Reid and extensively praised defensive coordinator Steven Spagnuolo, and you’ve got a staff that’s been dominating the league since 2020. On this season’s lineup alone, now we have a cadre of attention-grabbers, beginning with the QB:
- Patrick Mahomes, quarterback: At 29, Mahomes is the primary quarterback below age 30 in NFL historical past to begin in 4 Tremendous Bowls. As a child, Mahomes grew up in professional locker rooms together with his father, an expert baseball participant, and realized how one can be severe about his recreation early on. His declare to legend standing lies in his dramatic model of play — suppose loopy throws, massive dashes, easy conversions — and his skill to engineer wild, actually game-changing, comeback wins. His versatility exhibits within the sheer variety of data he’s racked up in a short while body, together with issues that don’t even appear actual, like being the quickest participant to achieve 25,000 profession passing yards whereas in some way additionally breaking speeding landing data as properly.
- Travis Kelce, tight finish: The tight finish is a task that doubles as each vast receiver and offensive lineman, and Kelce is actually, actually good at it — so good he had 1,000 receiving yards a season for seven seasons in a row. Kelce at present sits in third place for most receiving yards by any NFL tight finish. He’s additionally a bit of well-known outdoors of soccer — for his pop star girlfriend, and for the wildly profitable weekly sports activities podcast he hosts together with his brother Jason, New Heights.
- DeAndre Hopkins, vast receiver: The Chiefs made a dangerous midseason swap final 12 months for Hopkins, who described it as being “traded for pennies” after changing into dissatisfied together with his previous staff. But Hopkins, who’s been bounced across the league for years regardless of being one among its finest and most dependable vast receivers, shortly grew to become a fan favourite. Now he’s going to the Tremendous Bowl for the primary time in his 12-season profession — what he referred to as “a childhood dream.”
- Kareem Hunt, operating again: Regardless of his expertise, Hunt made headlines for the unsuitable causes in 2018, when the Chiefs fired him over leaked footage displaying him bodily assaulting a girl in a home violence incident outdoors of her lodge. In what may very well be an indication of the cultural shifts because the peak of the #MeToo period, Reid lately rehired Hunt as a free agent, citing his progress and maturity since then.
- Harrison Butker, kicker: One other participant identified for dramatics on and off the sphere, Butker made a reputation for himself together with his excessive proportion of accomplished area targets. He’s having a little bit of an off 12 months, however he’s particularly good in playoff season.
That’s lots of headline vitality on one taking part in area. However chances are high that the headlines you’ve seen in regards to the Chiefs this 12 months don’t have anything to do with their video games.
Issue No. 2: However they’re overexposed
Ever because the summer time of 2023, when Kelce efficiently pitched himself as boyfriend materials to reigning pop queen Taylor Swift, her presence — alongside legions of Swifties who flock to Chiefs video games with a purpose to see her — has come perilously near overshadowing the Chiefs themselves. That’s held true, regardless of the talents of the gamers on the sphere. Positive, it is perhaps the primary Tremendous Bowl three-peat in NFL historical past, however have you ever seen what enjoyable Taylor Swift and Gigi Hadid are having on the sidelines?
“I believe via the entire course of, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce have remained fairly likable,” Sweeney instructed me. “They’re not a staff that actually talks an excessive amount of trash on the podium.” It’s true that Mahomes, Kelce, and Reid have grow to be well-known for business endorsements, significantly these like State Farm and Subway that air continually throughout NFL video games, which arguably provides to their overexposure to common soccer viewers. Nonetheless, Sweeney argued, “The detest has actually come from, in my view, issues which can be out of their management.”
In actual fact, it’s uncommon that a lot occurs round a soccer staff culturally in a given season. Positive, you might need particular person controversial gamers on a sports activities staff, however the Chiefs and their households have been working additional time off the sphere to maintain all eyes on them.
First and most clearly, there’s Kelce’s relationship with Swift, which stays within the highlight though the couple — and the NFL’s advertising and marketing staff — has toned down the hoopla over her frequent visits to the stadium to look at him play. Nonetheless, “it’s unbelievable how many individuals, in case you’re in that part, have their again to the sport for giant components of the sport,” Sweeney mentioned, “simply wanting again to see her.”
The Swift romance has additionally had ripple results, each good and dangerous. In a constructive path, Swift’s relationship with Kelce arguably elevated the entire household’s profile — a lot that when Jason Kelce’s spouse Kylie debuted her personal podcast, Not Gonna Lie, it instantly and famously overtook Joe Rogan’s long-unassailable place because the No. 1 podcast within the nation. It’s been a prime hit ever since, although to be honest, Kylie Kelce has primarily centered on her personal pursuits and never her brother-in-law’s traditionally profitable soccer staff.
The heightened consideration Swift dropped at the staff has led to thorny political moments, as properly, nevertheless. Most notably, final fall, Swift followers got here for her new friendship with Mahomes’s spouse Brittany, after the latter indicated through social media that she was a Trump supporter. Swift promptly endorsed Kamala Harris and cooled, however didn’t finish, the friendship with Mahomes. Kelce, for his half, was already on skinny ice with some conservative thinkers for his Covid-19 vaccine commercials and the pair have lengthy been a typically complicated goal of now-President Donald Trump.
The political controversies don’t finish there, nevertheless; Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker has come below hearth repeatedly for controversial statements, most notably final 12 months when he gave a homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic graduation speech for a Catholic faculty in Nashville, indicating amongst different opinions that girls belong within the house and that Satisfaction month is “a lethal sin.” As a substitute of strolling it again, Butker refused to apologize, which led to him successful Outsports’ “Asshole of the 12 months” award for 2024.
That’s a lot of media consideration to foist on one already divisive staff. Nonetheless a lot the staff would possibly wish to keep centered on shifting the ball from one finish of the sphere to the opposite, the issues the general public initiatives upon them are inclined to mirror broader public discourse. One aspect of that projection arguably has to do with Kansas Metropolis itself, Sweeney says. Town has undergone a big shift over the past decade or so, diversifying and changing into a regional cultural hub the place it was beforehand seen as “flyover nation,” as Sweeney put it.
The Chiefs’ reign has undoubtedly performed a serious function within the metropolis’s speedy ascension, however whereas the town has grown, the state of Missouri, like many different crimson states, has grow to be much more politically locked down. So Kansas Metropolis, like many smaller-but-booming cities across the nation, exists in a state of inherent stress with itself. Arguably, it’s getting into its rocky “maintain Austin bizarre” interval, the place the necessity for city growth wars with the locals’ need to sluggish change and maintain outsiders outdoors. And all of that’s occurring alongside what many sports activities followers understand to be the Chiefs getting into their very own interval of turbulence.
Is that correct? Are the Chiefs actually having a horrible 12 months? That depends upon who you ask — and the reply, too, displays one thing in regards to the bigger cultural second we’re in.
Issue No. 3: There’s a notion that the Chiefs have it too straightforward
No less than one fable across the Chiefs — that their viewers is becoming bored — appears fairly straightforward to dispel. Their AFC championship recreation in mid-January drew the most important viewing viewers within the league’s historical past. Positive, you possibly can argue that each one these viewers have been simply tuning in hoping to see the Chiefs lose, however that doesn’t appear to bear out on condition that the Chiefs have drawn excessive rankings all season. That is additionally a sample that appears to carry true for a lot of polarizing sports activities dynasties — animosity yields rankings.
Different myths are extra irritating, partially as a result of they’re so acquainted. As with the Patriots, Chiefs haters usually accuse their recreation, which has advanced over time from counting on Mahomes’s flashier performs to extra conservative methods, of being boring. There’s nothing dramatic, in any case, about successful video games incrementally, through small yardage and single-point positive aspects, because the Chiefs are well-known for doing. But the Chiefs are additionally notorious for successful whole video games primarily based on a single rating, and continuously rush for dramatic distances, which looks like the alternative of “boring and incremental.” So which is it? Most likely each.
“They actually put themselves able to win every recreation,” Sweeney defined. “The Chiefs traditionally have been this staff that actually doesn’t blow different groups out. It comes down to 1 rating. They’ve received their previous 17 video games in a row by one rating, which is an NFL file.”
“And once you try this and also you win in these shut video games,” Sweeny continued, “You begin to get these moments the place perhaps a referee’s name may decide the sport.”
That results in one other fable that Chiefs haters have began to run with: that the staff will get favorable remedy. (This, once more, echoes the frequent criticism lodged towards the Patriots that the staff cheated — although that gripe arguably had extra basis than this one.) All through this season, followers and even sports activities writers have pointed towards moments the place referee calls went in favor of the Chiefs, spurring on culture-wide discuss of an enormous NFL insider conspiracy to ship the three-peat for the Chiefs it doesn’t matter what. This has led to the unfold of misinformation together with the Snopes-debunked lie that the AFC championship referees took bribes to name for the staff.
Sweeney lambasted irresponsible sports activities media for selling this sort of pondering amongst followers fairly than demystifying it. “These conspiracy theories can snowball,” he mentioned, calling high-profile commentators who site visitors in them “a bit of bit ridiculous and unprofessional.” He factors out that the Chiefs excel in a stat referred to as “anticipated factors added,” which refers to factors gained from performs the place a penalty is known as — in different phrases, all these small moments the place a ref’s name can actually make a distinction in a recreation.
A part of what makes this such a heated debate amongst followers, nevertheless, is that Mahomes has admitted to intentionally drawing penalties down upon reverse gamers who stand on the sidelines by sliding or “flopping” into them, which is an allowable NFL transfer. The issue for the opposing staff is that by the foundations, these sidelined gamers must keep away from touching the sliding quarterback, which makes it very straightforward for Mahomes to attain and for different gamers at hand the Chiefs factors incurred via penalties. That may grow to be extraordinarily irritating for viewers, even seasoned soccer followers, to see occur repeatedly.
That mentioned, there’s no proof of a broader conspiracy by refs to intentionally rule in Mahomes’s favor; that is simply, to some extent, how the sport is performed.
The rampant conspiracy theories may additionally boil down to a different factor we continuously see with different groups: envy. As Arrowhead Satisfaction’s Matt Stagner put it, that is all about dismissing the onerous work the staff has put in to get right here. “It couldn’t probably be that they’ve constructed a confirmed winner round a Corridor of Fame coach, coordinator, quarterback, defensive lineman and tight finish,” he wrote. “It couldn’t be that they put together and follow, they struggle via accidents, they reload the roster after they must, they draft properly, they’ve the fitting leaders within the locker room. To go to 3 straight Tremendous Bowls and 5 in six years, one thing needs to be rigged.”
So if the video games aren’t rigged, there’s no conspiracy, the boring components aren’t really boring, and accusations of turbulent taking part in are simply projections of our broader sociocultural upheaval, what are we left with?
Arguably, now we have a franchise that, once you peel every little thing else away, is admittedly very, superb on the jobbing elements of soccer. The Chiefs know when to remain centered below strain; they understand how to not violate guidelines and subsequently incur penalties; they know how one can work as a staff.
And if all goes properly, after Sunday, they could even know what it’s prefer to make NFL historical past.