The term Chiefs fatigue, already in heavy use throughout the season, has only become more common the closer we get to Sunday’s Super Bowl. The team’s pursuit of a three-peat with a quarterback on pace to break all sorts of records for some reason doesn’t do it for most people outside Kansas City.
That so many teams (ahem, the Bills) have come so close to unseating the Chiefs only to head home in despair, means frustration and anger is naturally directed at the winner. But is it really fair to cast Kansas City as the NFL’s leading villain?
Related: Are the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs lucky, good or lucky and good?
Given that having a villain is a basic tenet of sport, yes, it is. And who else would that villian be if not the back-to-back Super Bowl champions, who seem to win no matter the obstacle.
The first rule of NFL villainy is having the officials in your pocket. This grievance bears out especially when it comes to everyone’s favorite ambiguous foul: roughing the passer. According to Matt Sidney from Ebony Bird, a website covering the Baltimore Ravens, Patrick Mahomes has received a roughing the passer call once every 15 hits in the playoffs. Juxtapose that with Buffalo’s Josh Allen (one call every 32 hits) and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson (one call every 49 hits), and the cries of favoritism could be seen as legitimate. Then again, Mahomes is a master at working the refs, and it takes longer for officials to consider him in runner mode than players like Allen and Jackson, who are known for using their legs. Mahomes clinging on to the sideline in hopes of drawing a foul for a hit out of bounds is shrewd to his fans and villainous to his opponents. The NFL is all about squeezing out any competitive advantage but when an errant call goes against your team, it’s easy to point fingers beyond the officials.
And sports are fueled by having a hero and a villain. A 2010 research paper, Heroes and Villains: Increasing Fan Involvement in Pursuit of ‘The Elusive Fan’, notes that rivalries are essential to the economics of sport. “Sport administrators, event managers, and sport product marketers can observe fan response to heroes and villains to frame promotional campaigns, use them to heighten fan interest, and thus better connect with fans in a crowded marketplace,” write the authors, Thomas S Mueller and John C Sutherland. So, when competition is lopsided, TV announcers will concoct “conjectured rivalry, heroism, power struggles, and intrigue.”
Of course, the Chiefs don’t need much outside help to fill the villain bucket. In addition to the perceived officiating favoritism, and their gross tomahawk chop, there are plenty of unlikeable figures associated with the Chiefs. The vilest is their misogynistic and homophobic kicker, Harrison Butker. In a now infamous graduation commencement speech last May, Butker firmly stood against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. He also told a room of graduating seniors, many of them female, that women are intended to be homemakers. The Chiefs never condemned Butker’s words.
There’s also the team’s disturbing history of rolling out the red carpet for players who have faced allegations of violence against women. Tyreek Hill and Frank Clark are no longer with Kansas City but those moves were rooted in the calculus of money and performance, rather than some moral awakening by Chiefs brass. The Chiefs did release Kareem Hunt six years ago after a video showed him kicking and shoving a woman. He’s back with the Chiefs now, and “grown up” according to Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. Hunt’s incident was many years ago, but the redemption narratives circling him this Super Bowl are a bit extreme.
Then there’s the matter of those in the Chiefs’ sphere who have traded one red hat for another. After the Chiefs overtime win against Tampa Bay in November, long snapper James Winchester showed his support for Donald Trump. At the same game, Randi Mahomes, Patrick’s omnipresent mom, let the world know who had her vote. Trump publicly thanked Patrick’s wife “the beautiful Brittany Mahomes” last September after she liked one of his Instagram posts. Of course those views will endear much of America to the Chiefs, but others will think the Mahomes family can apparently tolerate vile behavior and astronomically priced eggs.
For the record, Patrick Mahomes and Reid did not endorse any candidate in last year’s presidential election. Both are respected and beloved members of the NFL community. That’s why, for many, the Chiefs don’t come close to the villainous nature of the New England Patriots dynasty. That team was found to be cheaters via Deflategate and Spygate, while their head coach, Bill Belichick, made grumpy rudeness a sport. And when it comes to Maga love, no one will ever top the Patriots, with Belichick writing Trump a love letter in 2016 and Pats owner Robert Kraft donating $1m and being front and center at his first inauguration.
That was then. We’re in a new era of a Super Bowl staple. When compared to the Patriots, and weighing the good and bad, the Chiefs are probably more annoying than villainous.
Instead of hating the Chiefs, it would be much easier to sit back and admire the greatness of the Mahomes Era. Who knows if we’ll see anything like it again. But how boring it would be if we found the positive in our opponents and just enjoyed the high level of skill. We as sports fans are programmed to need a villain. This current iteration of the Chiefs will do just fine.
