I Hate That I Hate the Chiefs

Goliath is pretty deserving

Some thoughts after our Kansas City Chiefs overlords again dispatched Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills to again make it back to the Super Bowl…

There’s a lot of research to suggest that people rationalize their emotional urges, retroactively. First you feel, then you think hard about the justification for the feeling.

You don’t simply hate someone for tribal or petty reasons. No, you see, that hatred is earned. Then the gears get to turning and you’ve come up with a whole logical treatise on why the person or thing you’re in competition with just so happens to be awful according to an absolutely objective criteria.

And that’s where I’m at with the Kansas City Chiefs, at least half way. I, like many American football fans, reflexively hate the Chiefs. I, like many American football fans, am desperate to see some other team humble them. I finally understood how visceral the urge was when, this season, I picked the Chiefs in a survival pool, and even with hundreds of dollars on the line, still felt myself rooting against Kansas City.

That’s not logical, and neither is my hatred. The Chiefs embody much of what I want in professional sports. I respect competence, and I’m a believer in people coming together to create a sum greater than the whole. It’s cool when the underdog wins, but I also appreciate when the best team is rewarded with championships.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes is an artist, and overall likable in my opinion. Head coach Andy Reid comes off as nice and respectful. I love their creative defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who seems like he could have been brilliant in a variety of occupations. Monster defensive lineman Chris Jones is hilarious in interviews. Tight end Travis Kelce’s fame whoring is slightly annoying, but he’s unimpeachable as a performer. Do the refs rig games for Kansas City, as is commonly believed on the Internet? I just find it more believable that the team with the era’s best quarterback, coach, tight end, defensive lineman, defensive coordinator and special teams tends to win football games.

The Chiefs are forward thinking as a franchise, zigging when others zag. They divested from wide receivers when everyone else was overpaying for the position. They cycle through cornerbacks rather than cashing out veterans, having identified CB as a role where draft picks can quickly get brought up to speed. Undervalued positions, like center, get priority in Kansas City.

While other teams stayed away from falsely accused punter Matt Araiza, the Chiefs finally offered him a job. I like that Andy Reid prioritizes team over media hysteria. Their Super Bowl rematch opponent, the Eagles, may have lost their last Super Bowl tilt against the Chiefs because they trotted out an injured punter instead of just adding Araiza. I guess what I’m saying is, the Chiefs are run almost precisely in the manner I’d favor a team be run.

I suppose Mahomes manipulates rules meant to protect quarterbacks and one could hate that, but hey, he’s trying to win, and those are the rules. If he was my quarterback, I certainly wouldn’t have a problem. I understand why others feel otherwise. I get where Freddie deBoer is coming from in his support of Josh Allen, and his lot as 2nd best quarterback is indeed an oddly compelling Sisyphean tragedy. People feel similarly sympathetic towards Lamar Jackson and that makes sense as well.

At the same time, I’m not sure I buy the narrative that Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson “deserve” a mantle that’s been unfairly denied. Sure, in some hypothetical reality where the Chiefs don’t exist, championships might be theirs. But in this reality, the one we live in, they had their chances. They had their moments. Football offers a cruelly small sample size for glory, but these Hall of Famers had instances where they did not come through.

Allen is pretty blameless for the outcome of that “13 seconds” 2021 AFC Divisional game, but does last Sunday really fit that mold? Typical of Allen, he made a couple plays nobody else could make, and a few other reckless errors. There’s an emotional discourse playing out right now over whether Allen should have converted a fading 4th and 5 heave that bounced off tight end Dalton Kincaid’s hands. ESPN football analyst Benjamin Solak offered an opinion on what Allen should have done in response to Spagnuolo’s savage blitz. Other commentators, some former NFL quarterbacks, are dunking on Solak for casting too much blame from his couch.

Both Ryan Fitzpatrick and Ryan Leaf invoked “credibility” when going after Solak, and while they might be correct about the play itself, the “credibility” issue goes both ways here. Similar to NBA coaches who never criticize a coach, former NFL quarterbacks in media are generally loath to rip a star QB. Solak’s probably underplaying how difficult it is for the man in the arena to make certain plays under physical duress, but this nerd’s criticism stands out because the jocks aren’t breaking ranks.

I don’t know what should have been expected from Josh Allen on that 4th and 5, but I know his first two passes were dropped interceptions, and he fumbled three times (all recovered). I don’t understand football well enough to argue whether it’s Allen’s fault that his normally automatic “tush push” plays were far less effective, but they were. Even after all of it, he had a chance, with four downs available, to close out the game. He’d helped to secure that chance with great plays of his own, to be sure. But the point is that the opportunity for a legacy-elevating drive was there, and Allen quickly found himself in a desperation 4th and 5. Ultimately, he did not come through. You can make a similar assessment of what happened in last season’s Bills elimination vs. the Chiefs, when Allen fumbled on the final drive (recovered) and later couldn’t convert.

It hurts when your guys don’t come through (I certainly felt it in last year’s Super Bowl), which informs why the blame conversation has transferred to villains like Benjamin Solak and a second year tight end. But that’s not an outcome that screams “God loves the Chiefs,” or “the refs love the Chiefs.” The Chiefs are just less error prone, repeatedly. There’s an element of luck, but nobody gets this lucky this many times.

This isn’t to build the Chiefs up to be Gods. They’re fallible as well, just less so than opponents. To beat them, you’ve got to be better than Allen and the Bills were on Sunday. When one team succeeds so often, it can feel like the game is rigged, which leads resentments. But the game isn’t rigged. The victors are worthy. The vanquished came up short for reasons. I hate that my affinity drifts in the direction of the losers when I know, logically, that they deserve to lose.