Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, we and our team are the new villains in sports.
It is a good place to be. Somewhere between last years repeat Super Bowl win and this years opportunity to three-peat, we have stopped being Americas sweetheart, the plucky team with a history of heartbreak and disappointment.
Now, we’re the team that gets all the breaks. The NFL and the referees are being accused of rigging games in our favor. We are now what the New England Patriots were.
And it is wonderful. Sing along to the music of Queen, with altered lyrics:
“We are the villains, my friends.” This is where I could try to defend the Chiefs, especially against the ref accusations and Patriots comparisons. The idea that the officials as a group are trying to help the Chiefs win is ridiculous. Have some calls recently gone our way, especially in big moments? Of course. But if you’ve watched the Chiefs week in and week out, you know how many calls have gone against us or have not been made.
Mahomes has taken a number of hits that should have drawn flags and didn’t. The Chiefs were among the least penalized teams this season, but a year ago they were the fifth-most penalized team in terms of yards and 11th most in terms of number of penalties.
And unlike the early Patriots dynasty, we have not been illicitly taping our opponents practices, and our balls are not deflated. We don’t need to waste time defending our team against jealousy. Instead, let’s embrace our role as the NFL’s new villains. Our new motto: “Too bad.”
TV pundits are now debating how close Patrick Mahomes is to surpassing Tom Brady as the best quarterback ever. Mahomes is not even a Pro Bowl choice this season. He was pedestrian, at best, as the Chiefs won a record 11 games by one possession. The Chiefs have won 17 straight one-possession games.
Now that the playoffs have begun, Mahomes is back to looking like the best quarterback ever, Travis Kelce is revitalized, and the defense makes every play when it absolutely has to.
The Chiefs are no longer the circus act that can score 50 points in any game. Instead, they are the team that makes that one play to win a game, and avoids that one mistake that loses a game. They are business-like. They are a cat playing with its prey.
It may not be as exciting to watch for the casual fan, although the Chiefs are far more fun than the evil empire that was New England.
For K.C. fans of a certain age like me, every moment is appreciated. Many of these moments are also extremely stressful, because we are so traumatized by the team’s history. Between head coaches Hank Stram and Marty Schottenheimer, the Chiefs were irrelevant. The Chiefs had some great regular-season success under Marty and Dick Vermeil, but our playoffs were cursed after Joe Montana’s career ended with a concussion on the cold turf in Buffalo in the 1993 playoffs.
Then came a seven-year span where the Chiefs were a broken team, maybe the worst in the league. All of that made us very twitchy. This current run as the league’s best team was new territory for us as we still expected the worst to happen. But now, we are unequivocally the best team in the league. Can we be beat? Sure. But don’t bet on it.
It is time for us to be cocky. We should expect to win every game, and we should expect to get every call and every break. Bite my red-and-gold Andy Reid cookie. Let the hate flow through you. If you don’t like the Chiefs winning, tell your team to get better.
Until then, here is a bright yellow hankie to wipe away your tears. Go Chiefs!
Travis Mounts is managing editor of Times-Sentinel Newspapers in Cheney, a past president of the Kansas Press Association, and an ardent Kansas City Chiefs fan.
