I think hatred of the Chiefs boils down to three things, two closely related. First, people only like dynasties when it is their own team, the team just won its first couple of titles when they're the extiting up-and-comer, or ten or more years after it ends when we appreciate how good they were for so long.
Second, Travis Kelce is everywhere and is not charismatic, really, in any of his appearances, so it feels very forced-upon.
Third, related to the second, is the Taylor Swift factor. Football's popularity is vast majority male, and she brought in several million women into the fold, who all became Chiefs fans, regardless of local affiliation. This is basically akin to picking up soccer and deciding to root for Man City. Sports fans don't like that. At all. Additionally, with how often she was shown on every single broadcast, how often she was talked about (even in games in which the Chiefs played no part), etc., it became incredibly annoying to fans who just wanted to watch a good football game, to the point where they just want the Chiefs to lose so that all would just go away, until next season at least.
How real are these female Swiftie / Chief fans? Are there really women who are making time to watch football on Sunday? Is it something that mostly plays out on Twitter / X? Is it just ladies buying chiefs jerseys?
My question isn't meant to take away from your point, the IDEA of these new bandwagon fans is certainly annoying enough, but I'm curious if there are actually more than a couple thousand of actual new "real" fans.
In terms of raw numbers, I have absolutely no idea. There definitely was a large enough influx for several articles to be written at the start of last season about ratings boosts and for on-air coverage to change to mention her all the time. So even if the net new fans isn't large, their effect on broadcasts was nonetheless felt.
No. Fuck that. I'm 100% with Freddie DeBoer. I hate the Chiefs. I hate their annoying commercials. I hate Swiftie Mania. I hate the Kelce brothers being shoved in my face constantly. And I hate how the refs constantly give them breaks.
And above all, I hate dynasties. The NFL, the supposed league of parity, has been stuck in Dynasty Hell with the Patriots and now the Chiefs.
But it's not just the Chiefs, though. The NFL has been in a period dominated by dynasties for the past quarter century, and that inherently boring and not fun. In 20 of the last 24 seasons, the Patriots or the Chiefs have been the preseason betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. That's unhealthy for the league.
Ratings are indicative of a healthy league and people liking the product. Pretty bad faith argument to say what is making the league more popular is bad because you don't like the teams (Bills division rival and Bills playoff foil) that get good.
My team (Raiders) hasn't been truly relevant in 20 years and I could not be more interested in the NFL
To you perhaps. But if more people are watching than ever, and TV viewership is declining in every other area, it tells you that you may have different tastes than most.
Cavs-Warriors 4x didn’t become boring. Nor did 4 years of LeBron on Miami. Or the late 90s Yankees or 2010s Bama. You just may be on the minority.
4th yes. You’re putting hindsight bias into the third— that was very much anticipated, 4-1 as a result didn’t accurately depict the closeness of some of the games. Of course, GSW would’ve beaten anyone.
What's amazing is the Chiefs keep making the Super Bowl, despite a loaded AFC. The Lions are a terrific team in the lesser conference, and can't even be the 80s Broncos, offered up as an annual sacrifice to the NFC in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs have no real institutional advantages yet they are on an all-time heater.
But we'll watch because the Eagles are awesome, too. No one thinks this is gonna be a walkover. The Eagles are dogs, but barely. They are David worth caring about.
No mention of past HoS featured kicker Harrison Butker, who had the game winning FG?
There'd be a lot less hate today if the refs would have correctly overturned the 4th and 1 that was pretty obviously a conversion. Mahomes is legendary (and likeable), Andy Reid and his coaches are a cut above everyone else (if there's such a thing as clutch coaching, they are the most clutch). So credit where it's due. But it "feels" like every 50/50 call goes the Chiefs way.
1. Like the old Patriots, the Chiefs almost always get more calls than their opponents. Nobody, but it’s fans, likes the team that gets the benefit of the doubt. Especially when that team figures that out, and exploits it.
2. The team itself is pretty bland, Mahomes is fine but not exactly a supernova of charisma. The attention given despite lack of charisma adds to them being annoying — Taylor Swift is the perfect mascot.
3. Josh Allen did make the play that he was supposed to make! Few others can deal with a blown play like that, and then make *that* throw in that circumstance—Kincaid robbed him.
Seeing genuinely incredible talents like Allen, Jackson, etc. continue to fall despite them and their teams often performing incredibly well has me really re-thinking how I see the 90s NBA as someone too young to have watched it.
I've always held Jordan in high esteem but also felt like he just didn't really succeed against that great of competition compared to LeBron, or even predecessors like Magic and Bird. But I think I'm coming to realize that I'll always have trouble properly evaluating guys like Ewing, Barkley, Malone, and Stockton because our heuristic for greatness (or at least my own) is so heavily weighted to winning a championship, and Jordan denied that to many of them. How much more would everyone talk about Stockton if he won even one title, considering how unbreakable his records are? Or how much more legend status would Ewing get if he was the guy who finally delivered the Knicks another title?
These guys are all still young and things can change quickly, but given how great the Chiefs are and how much of a beating Lamar and Josh take running the ball, their window might be closing. I wonder if one day I'll be trying to explain to some kid that he really doesn't understand how great Lamar and Josh were, and that it just won't get through to them because they mostly see them as guys with some nice regular season stats who never even got out of the AFC.
Maybe I shouldn't be so dismissive of those guys like Spike Eskin saying I don't comprehend Jordan's greatness because I didn't witness it...
The difference between the Chiefs and the Patriots is that the Patriots were more like the NBA's Spurs: consistently great in regular season, but very capable of laying a massive playoff egg. 6 titles in 20 years vs 5 titles in 20 years. People can stomach that. The Chiefs - assuming they beat the Eagles - are entering the "no dumb losses" stratosphere, which means they're closer to the Celtics and UCLA dynasties. Obviously most of us weren't alive then, but I'm guessing this is what it felt like. Total inevitability, no stupid losses along the way. Or maybe one every 10 years. What if we're in year 5 of a run where KC wins 10 of 12 Superbowls? Is that good for the NFL or bad? The Pats, even in their near undefeated year, never felt invincible. We watched those Giants Superbowls with relish because we absolutely could see a scenario where the Pats lose. We're dangerously close to no longer having that with KC. By my math, Mahomes has lost twice to Brady, and once to Burrow, his entire playoff career. And Brady appears to be retired. Until we see someone active other than Burrow beat him, it's going to be tough to even imagine that scenario, let alone expect it.
I was rooting against Brady in every playoff game the Pats’ dynasties, and I’ve been rooting against LeBron since his first year in Miami (disclosure: Warriors fan)…it may be that I started rooting for the Mahomes/Kelce/Reid Chiefs in that first AFCCG vs. the Pats, but I vowed not to make the same mistake of rooting against greatness/dynasties…it’s been fun to experience this Chiefs run with appreciation instead of distain.
I don't hate the Chiefs but I do root for teams like Buffalo and Baltimore over them because I'd like to see their QBs get their due. Josh Allen is so good. And his playoff stats are outstanding. Did he play a perfect game yesterday? No. He was good, not great. A lot of things he does get completely overlooked like a DB coming completely free through the B gap, Allen effortlessly side steps him and completes a 15 yard pass. Ho hum, next play. But not a lot of guys make that play.
But as important as QBs are, they're not everything. I'm a Giants fan. The orientation of that 4th down heave was reminiscent of the Helmet Catch. Tyree made an unbelievable play. Kincaid didn't make an easier, but still hard catch. Eli is SB MVP. Allen goes home sad. If Brady completes that deep ball on the next drive, the Pats are the best team of all time and the Giants and Eli are the brave but forgettable final opponent.
This is not to "excuse" Allen, just to note that there are 11 guys on the field for over 100 plays and each of them is taking many actions on each play that will lead to good or bad outcomes.
I honestly think they may be a better dynasty than the patriots. Ppl hate them now but over his career mahomes has been more fun to watch (and probably better) than Brady. They don’t have a deflate gate or spygate level scandal at least yet and the patriots championships were spread out in almost a Kobe-esque way where they where all either at the very beginning or end of Tom Brady’s peak whereas the chiefs have a single era of complete dominance.
Great piece but one omission and one clarification I would like to call out. First, the article omits the decision by Mahomes to take financially friendly extensions from the Chiefs to afford the front office cap flexibility. Mahomes - unlike virtually every other quarterback - wanted Kelce, Jones, and Humphrey to get their money too and keep moving toward more Super Bowls. That's a distinction with a difference in my view.
Now a clarification. The media - as here - continues to incorrectly use in my view the loaded word "rigged" as a strawman to easily knock over claims of possible referee malfeasance. I personally don't care either way about this issue. However, "rigging" inaccurately implies something that fans that I read are not saying. I think you would agree that it is important to accurately describe what fans are theorizing, even if you disagree.
To that end, I don't believe fans are saying that the outcomes of these games are "rigged." Rather that the referees understand what teams and narratives (e.g., Taylor Swift, an engagement at the Super Bowl) are favored and that the NFL wants to see for greater ratings. Thus, the referees according to the theories I read/hear, "steer" or "influence" the outcome at key times through discretionary penalties and decisions favorable to Kansas City. This does not equate with assuring an outcome as rigging implies.
Again, I'm not invested in this issue at all, but what I think you will agree is very odd is that with the growing controversy the NFL could easily counter it by not showing Taylor Swift at games. Yet, they haven't taken that simple step which suggests to many fans that they instead direct the networks to do the opposite. That in turn feeds the belief in some fans of referee steering toward favored narratives.
I wasn’t a Pats fan but for me at least it was fun watch them win. I’m a cowboys fan and we always disappoint. The Chiefs just aren’t as fun to watch. I don’t hate them, they just make the sport boring.
Not a big football guy, but I think part of the NFL’s appeal is the unpredictability of the playoffs and parity across the league, generally. The Chiefs just take all of that out of the equation. They feel inevitable and people want their drama back.
Something flipped since last year. Mahomes getting extra yards on runs by defenders being afraid to hit him and him manipulating that has turned me off during the course of the season. Yesterday, I realized I was sick of hearing Mahones voice calling out plays. The Super Bowl before last seemed like it was settled on a pivotable play by the refs. I'm ready for a new show.
I think hatred of the Chiefs boils down to three things, two closely related. First, people only like dynasties when it is their own team, the team just won its first couple of titles when they're the extiting up-and-comer, or ten or more years after it ends when we appreciate how good they were for so long.
Second, Travis Kelce is everywhere and is not charismatic, really, in any of his appearances, so it feels very forced-upon.
Third, related to the second, is the Taylor Swift factor. Football's popularity is vast majority male, and she brought in several million women into the fold, who all became Chiefs fans, regardless of local affiliation. This is basically akin to picking up soccer and deciding to root for Man City. Sports fans don't like that. At all. Additionally, with how often she was shown on every single broadcast, how often she was talked about (even in games in which the Chiefs played no part), etc., it became incredibly annoying to fans who just wanted to watch a good football game, to the point where they just want the Chiefs to lose so that all would just go away, until next season at least.
How real are these female Swiftie / Chief fans? Are there really women who are making time to watch football on Sunday? Is it something that mostly plays out on Twitter / X? Is it just ladies buying chiefs jerseys?
My question isn't meant to take away from your point, the IDEA of these new bandwagon fans is certainly annoying enough, but I'm curious if there are actually more than a couple thousand of actual new "real" fans.
In terms of raw numbers, I have absolutely no idea. There definitely was a large enough influx for several articles to be written at the start of last season about ratings boosts and for on-air coverage to change to mention her all the time. So even if the net new fans isn't large, their effect on broadcasts was nonetheless felt.
No. Fuck that. I'm 100% with Freddie DeBoer. I hate the Chiefs. I hate their annoying commercials. I hate Swiftie Mania. I hate the Kelce brothers being shoved in my face constantly. And I hate how the refs constantly give them breaks.
And above all, I hate dynasties. The NFL, the supposed league of parity, has been stuck in Dynasty Hell with the Patriots and now the Chiefs.
"ApPrEcIaTe gReAtNeSs" they say. No.
But it's not just the Chiefs, though. The NFL has been in a period dominated by dynasties for the past quarter century, and that inherently boring and not fun. In 20 of the last 24 seasons, the Patriots or the Chiefs have been the preseason betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. That's unhealthy for the league.
unhealthy for the league -> all time ratings as recently as 2024 for the divisional round
I'm not an NFL owner so I don't care about their ratings. Perpetual dynasty kills fun and drama.
Ratings are indicative of a healthy league and people liking the product. Pretty bad faith argument to say what is making the league more popular is bad because you don't like the teams (Bills division rival and Bills playoff foil) that get good.
My team (Raiders) hasn't been truly relevant in 20 years and I could not be more interested in the NFL
To you perhaps. But if more people are watching than ever, and TV viewership is declining in every other area, it tells you that you may have different tastes than most.
Cavs-Warriors 4x didn’t become boring. Nor did 4 years of LeBron on Miami. Or the late 90s Yankees or 2010s Bama. You just may be on the minority.
First two times of Cavs-Warriors was a lot of fun. The 3rd and 4th were incredibly boring blowouts.
4th yes. You’re putting hindsight bias into the third— that was very much anticipated, 4-1 as a result didn’t accurately depict the closeness of some of the games. Of course, GSW would’ve beaten anyone.
You need David AND Goliath.
What's amazing is the Chiefs keep making the Super Bowl, despite a loaded AFC. The Lions are a terrific team in the lesser conference, and can't even be the 80s Broncos, offered up as an annual sacrifice to the NFC in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs have no real institutional advantages yet they are on an all-time heater.
But we'll watch because the Eagles are awesome, too. No one thinks this is gonna be a walkover. The Eagles are dogs, but barely. They are David worth caring about.
Bingo. That Rams/Bengals Super Bowl we got a few years ago was fantastic because it was fresh and different. And it was a great game too!
(Certainly irritated by Kansas City.)
Was it? Chiefs v. Eagles and 49ers v. Chiefs were more exciting, tense games. Both appearances by LA, bland.
No mention of past HoS featured kicker Harrison Butker, who had the game winning FG?
There'd be a lot less hate today if the refs would have correctly overturned the 4th and 1 that was pretty obviously a conversion. Mahomes is legendary (and likeable), Andy Reid and his coaches are a cut above everyone else (if there's such a thing as clutch coaching, they are the most clutch). So credit where it's due. But it "feels" like every 50/50 call goes the Chiefs way.
1. Like the old Patriots, the Chiefs almost always get more calls than their opponents. Nobody, but it’s fans, likes the team that gets the benefit of the doubt. Especially when that team figures that out, and exploits it.
2. The team itself is pretty bland, Mahomes is fine but not exactly a supernova of charisma. The attention given despite lack of charisma adds to them being annoying — Taylor Swift is the perfect mascot.
3. Josh Allen did make the play that he was supposed to make! Few others can deal with a blown play like that, and then make *that* throw in that circumstance—Kincaid robbed him.
Seeing genuinely incredible talents like Allen, Jackson, etc. continue to fall despite them and their teams often performing incredibly well has me really re-thinking how I see the 90s NBA as someone too young to have watched it.
I've always held Jordan in high esteem but also felt like he just didn't really succeed against that great of competition compared to LeBron, or even predecessors like Magic and Bird. But I think I'm coming to realize that I'll always have trouble properly evaluating guys like Ewing, Barkley, Malone, and Stockton because our heuristic for greatness (or at least my own) is so heavily weighted to winning a championship, and Jordan denied that to many of them. How much more would everyone talk about Stockton if he won even one title, considering how unbreakable his records are? Or how much more legend status would Ewing get if he was the guy who finally delivered the Knicks another title?
These guys are all still young and things can change quickly, but given how great the Chiefs are and how much of a beating Lamar and Josh take running the ball, their window might be closing. I wonder if one day I'll be trying to explain to some kid that he really doesn't understand how great Lamar and Josh were, and that it just won't get through to them because they mostly see them as guys with some nice regular season stats who never even got out of the AFC.
Maybe I shouldn't be so dismissive of those guys like Spike Eskin saying I don't comprehend Jordan's greatness because I didn't witness it...
Yeah Jordan killed the Cavs, Knicks, and Jazz. Wrong era to be good.
The difference between the Chiefs and the Patriots is that the Patriots were more like the NBA's Spurs: consistently great in regular season, but very capable of laying a massive playoff egg. 6 titles in 20 years vs 5 titles in 20 years. People can stomach that. The Chiefs - assuming they beat the Eagles - are entering the "no dumb losses" stratosphere, which means they're closer to the Celtics and UCLA dynasties. Obviously most of us weren't alive then, but I'm guessing this is what it felt like. Total inevitability, no stupid losses along the way. Or maybe one every 10 years. What if we're in year 5 of a run where KC wins 10 of 12 Superbowls? Is that good for the NFL or bad? The Pats, even in their near undefeated year, never felt invincible. We watched those Giants Superbowls with relish because we absolutely could see a scenario where the Pats lose. We're dangerously close to no longer having that with KC. By my math, Mahomes has lost twice to Brady, and once to Burrow, his entire playoff career. And Brady appears to be retired. Until we see someone active other than Burrow beat him, it's going to be tough to even imagine that scenario, let alone expect it.
I was rooting against Brady in every playoff game the Pats’ dynasties, and I’ve been rooting against LeBron since his first year in Miami (disclosure: Warriors fan)…it may be that I started rooting for the Mahomes/Kelce/Reid Chiefs in that first AFCCG vs. the Pats, but I vowed not to make the same mistake of rooting against greatness/dynasties…it’s been fun to experience this Chiefs run with appreciation instead of distain.
I don't hate the Chiefs but I do root for teams like Buffalo and Baltimore over them because I'd like to see their QBs get their due. Josh Allen is so good. And his playoff stats are outstanding. Did he play a perfect game yesterday? No. He was good, not great. A lot of things he does get completely overlooked like a DB coming completely free through the B gap, Allen effortlessly side steps him and completes a 15 yard pass. Ho hum, next play. But not a lot of guys make that play.
But as important as QBs are, they're not everything. I'm a Giants fan. The orientation of that 4th down heave was reminiscent of the Helmet Catch. Tyree made an unbelievable play. Kincaid didn't make an easier, but still hard catch. Eli is SB MVP. Allen goes home sad. If Brady completes that deep ball on the next drive, the Pats are the best team of all time and the Giants and Eli are the brave but forgettable final opponent.
This is not to "excuse" Allen, just to note that there are 11 guys on the field for over 100 plays and each of them is taking many actions on each play that will lead to good or bad outcomes.
Chiefs gamed team construction similar to Pats. QB, one star TE, cheap rbs, savant defensive coach.
The way they win doesn’t inspire, that works against them
I honestly think they may be a better dynasty than the patriots. Ppl hate them now but over his career mahomes has been more fun to watch (and probably better) than Brady. They don’t have a deflate gate or spygate level scandal at least yet and the patriots championships were spread out in almost a Kobe-esque way where they where all either at the very beginning or end of Tom Brady’s peak whereas the chiefs have a single era of complete dominance.
Great piece but one omission and one clarification I would like to call out. First, the article omits the decision by Mahomes to take financially friendly extensions from the Chiefs to afford the front office cap flexibility. Mahomes - unlike virtually every other quarterback - wanted Kelce, Jones, and Humphrey to get their money too and keep moving toward more Super Bowls. That's a distinction with a difference in my view.
Now a clarification. The media - as here - continues to incorrectly use in my view the loaded word "rigged" as a strawman to easily knock over claims of possible referee malfeasance. I personally don't care either way about this issue. However, "rigging" inaccurately implies something that fans that I read are not saying. I think you would agree that it is important to accurately describe what fans are theorizing, even if you disagree.
To that end, I don't believe fans are saying that the outcomes of these games are "rigged." Rather that the referees understand what teams and narratives (e.g., Taylor Swift, an engagement at the Super Bowl) are favored and that the NFL wants to see for greater ratings. Thus, the referees according to the theories I read/hear, "steer" or "influence" the outcome at key times through discretionary penalties and decisions favorable to Kansas City. This does not equate with assuring an outcome as rigging implies.
Again, I'm not invested in this issue at all, but what I think you will agree is very odd is that with the growing controversy the NFL could easily counter it by not showing Taylor Swift at games. Yet, they haven't taken that simple step which suggests to many fans that they instead direct the networks to do the opposite. That in turn feeds the belief in some fans of referee steering toward favored narratives.
Thanks.
I wasn’t a Pats fan but for me at least it was fun watch them win. I’m a cowboys fan and we always disappoint. The Chiefs just aren’t as fun to watch. I don’t hate them, they just make the sport boring.
And the Chiefs have done this without the help of a single convicted murderer.
Not a big football guy, but I think part of the NFL’s appeal is the unpredictability of the playoffs and parity across the league, generally. The Chiefs just take all of that out of the equation. They feel inevitable and people want their drama back.
I mean, as a Raiders fan, I hate the Chiefs and don't feel bad about it. Zero to do with whether or not they're a great team, or deserving!
Something flipped since last year. Mahomes getting extra yards on runs by defenders being afraid to hit him and him manipulating that has turned me off during the course of the season. Yesterday, I realized I was sick of hearing Mahones voice calling out plays. The Super Bowl before last seemed like it was settled on a pivotable play by the refs. I'm ready for a new show.