Every NFL team has a shelf life in being America’s sweethearts, and the Kansas City Chiefs have officially gone past their expiration date.
If you’re wondering why, just look at the general feeling of apathy about this year’s Super Bowl matchup, the fourth Chiefs game in the five big games of the 2020s. It’s the team’s second against the San Francisco 49ers, and it feels like a laughable proposition that Brock Purdy will be able to outduel Patrick Mahomes in Las Vegas.
The most likely outcome is Mahomes and his Kansas City teammates celebrating under a third confetti shower and adding yet another diamond-studded championship ring to the jewelry display.
After years of groaning about the sustained excellence of the New England Patriots dynasty of the 2000s and 2010s. We have our successors, and they wear red helmets and appear in a lot of State Farm commercials.
It really wasn’t all that long ago that Mahomes was just a budding star on a long underachieving team, best known for his unorthodox ketchup habits and a voice that sounded strikingly similar to Kermit the Frog.
Now, he’s on the cusp of a third championship in four years, coming off a season where most folks were a bit relieved that Kansas City wasn’t playing to its typical standard so that the spotlight could shine elsewhere in the NFL.
The Mahomes years have come swiftly and with blunt force, and we’re well into a world where people are openly wondering if he’s really the greatest quarterback of all time against Tom Brady’s sensational run.
Brady and the Patriots didn’t take long to go from scrappy underdogs from New England to the Evil Empire of the Bitter North, but that’s what winning does. The more you establish yourself as the team to beat, the more people will want to see you get beaten. If you become the immovable object, everyone is going to root for an unstoppable force.
It’s how the New York Giants, a team that you’d expect to get plenty of jeers being as they’re literally a team from New York, became the great avengers for toppling the Patriots in two Super Bowls. It’s not that everyone loved Eli Manning and Michael Strahan; they just loved watching the Pats lose.
It never helped for New England to be embroiled in two major cheating scandals during Brady and Bill Belichick’s run, nor did it help that both were increasingly polarizing personalities that everyone loved to hate.
Kansas City hasn’t ever had that problem in the past, as Mahomes’ infectious energy, coach Andy Reid’s jovial sideline presence and the rise of pop culture icon Travis Kelce helped buoy the team’s ascent into the NFL’s elite.
However, that’s changed in 2023. Even though angst about Taylor Swift attending Chiefs games to watch Kelce is patently ridiculous, it has garnered the franchise even more of a national presence and invited more bandwagoning/backlash to said bandwagoning.
That just comes with the territory of being a football team that crosses over into mainstream appeal; everyone is going to talk about you all of the time, and people will get tired and want to hear about someone else.
While hand-wringing about Swifties rooting for the Chiefs is admittedly dull, December’s Kadarius Toney offsides scandal felt like a changing of the guard, when Kansas City’s uproar over a referee’s call turned the likable Chiefs into a petty bunch who blamed officiating for a defeat.
If you want to trace the exact moment people started rebelling against the Chiefs dynasty, this is probably it. It was a public airing of grievances that turned a very winning Kansas City team into sore losers. Moments like that leave a mark when everyone else is already waiting for you to take a step back. A two-time Super Bowl winner eye-rollingly decrying a single call in a regular season game doesn’t leave a good taste in people’s mouths.
Moments like Sunday’s Kelce and Mahomes spat with Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker plays as less cute than childish these days. A few years ago, we likely get more of a kick out of something like that.
However, this recent playoff run crystalized something in a lot of people’s minds. Even when you think the Chiefs are down and out, you can’t bet against Mahomes. His stellar January toppled the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and Ravens, three teams that had gotten regular football fans excited about the possibility of a new AFC heavyweight playing in February.
It wasn’t to be because, like Thanos to the Avengers, Mahomes and the Chiefs are now inevitable. For the rest of Mahomes’ career, he’ll likely go from being on the fun team to zapping the fun team out of his path en route to the Super Bowl.
Like Brady and the Patriots did for all those years, Mahomes and the Chiefs will be the biggest obstacles for your favorite football team finally getting over the hump to bring a Lombardi back to your home stadium. While it won’t happen every year, it’ll always stand the chance of happening.
That’s the problem with being the best as long as these Chiefs have. There just comes a time where people get tired of watching the same things play out over and over again and want something different. They also want that different to be something they have a rooting interest in.
The Chiefs will continue to dominate the NFL as long as Mahomes plays at his elite level. We’re not sure how long this dynasty will last, but Mahomes isn’t even 30 yet. It stands to reason that we’ll be here for a while.
As typically likable as the Chiefs have been, they’ve crossed the uncanny valley of being robotic in their victories, much like Tawmmy and the Pats did for so many years.
As Harvey Dent so eloquently said in The Dark Knight, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. By taking New England’s place as the golden standard in the NFL, Kansas City must also take on the limitless frustrations for their lack of failures.
Until a new team rises to take their place, the Chiefs are going to have to embrace a new reality. It’s lonely at the top.
