Hate on the Chiefs.
When you’re winning (most of the time) like Patrick Mahomes and Co., chasing immortality and an historic Super Bowl three-peat mission, this is part of the package.
Not everyone loves you, Andy Reid. Or at least they are not feeling the excellence that your team represents as it prepares to host yet another AFC championship game.
I mean, it flows from back-to-back Super Bowl crowns and three in five years. It involves all of those close calls and clutch moments. There’s the flood of TV commercials, too, that have revealed the coach and star quarterback as appealing pitchmen. Travis Kelce. And the sentiments don’t ignore Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, who has helped make watching NFL games fun for a whole new demographic.
Are people just sick and tired of the Chiefs? Just to be sick and tired?
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Take it from Marlon Humphrey, the All-Pro cornerback now sitting at home with the Baltimore Ravens. Here’s how he summed it up with a social media post on X:
“I have no reason of saying this other than being a hater,” Humphrey posted. “The Bills or whatever NFC team gotta beat the Chiefs. We can’t let them keep getting away with this.”
You might think that Humphrey is a bit salty after just suffering a setback at the hands of the Chiefs.
Nope. That was last year, when the Ravens blew the home-field advantage that they worked so hard to achieve and lost to Kansas City in the AFC title game. This time, Humphrey’s mistake-prone team fell on the sword at Buffalo on Sunday, when the Bills advanced with a divisional playoff win.
So, when Humphrey talks about the Chiefs “getting away” with stuff, he’s apparently speaking for the masses.
Or the Houston Texans. Kansas City’s divisional playoff triumph on Saturday included two controversial Texans penalties for actually touching Mahomes in the heat of the action. How dare they.
Will Anderson was flagged in the first quarter for roughing the passer, a huge third down penalty that kept a drive alive that ended with a field goal. In the third quarter, Henry To’oTo’o was penalized for unnecessary roughness for a play when he actually inflicted more damage on a teammate than the quarterback who slid a bit late. It moved the chains during a 13-play, 81-yard touchdown drive.
Afterward, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans contended, “We knew coming into this game it was us versus everybody.”
In a pool report, referee Clay Martin maintained the calls were the result of the defenders making “forcible contact” to the head and neck area. As much as people want to nitpick, or as much as ESPN analyst Troy Aikman wants to blast the officials in real time, the calls – later backed by Walt Anderson, the league’s senior VP of officiating – followed the letter of the NFL law.
But still. Chiefs haters, promoting a conspiracy theory, will tell you that Mahomes gets the benefit of ticky-tack calls, just like Tom Brady used to receive.
Sure, Mahomes brings some gamesmanship. He has mastered the deke and pump-fake on scrambles, often picking up extra yards by forcing defenders to freeze for an instant.
But the idea that he gets over-the-top favor is a stretch. Remember the time Kadarius Toney lined up offsides? It cost the Chiefs a game and Mahomes went ballistic on the sideline, steamed that they didn’t get a warning rather than a flag.
In any event, the negativity seems so real. It’s to the point that several people I talked to this week in random conversations offered their unsolicited desire to see this Chiefs fall this weekend. I’m guessing they just wanted to put it in the universe.
Regardless, they’ll watch. No team in the NFL is a bigger TV draw than the Chiefs, surpassing the Dallas Cowboys (which still ranks highly despite a decades-long championship drought) in the ratings game.
When the Chiefs suffered their first loss of the season at Buffalo in mid-November, the matchup drew an average of 31.2 million viewers – more than the figure for any NFL regular-season game since 2007, outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve games. And the Christmas blowout at Pittsburgh, with an average of 24.1 million tuning in on Netflix, was one of the most-streamed NFL games yet.
So, sorry, Jerry, while the Chiefs have become “America’s Team” in that they are also the team that (many in) America love to hate.
Just like it was a few years ago, when the New England Patriots’ Evil Empire juiced by Brady and Bill Belichick kept winning Super Bowls.
Face it, Kansas City Chiefs: You’ve earned this. Success breeds contempt.
On Sunday, the Chiefs (16-2) will host the AFC championship game at Arrowhead Stadium for the sixth time in seven years. And a lot of people will join Humphrey in rooting for the Buffalo Bills. Just because. They are circling the wagons with anti-KC venom.
Sure, it’s a great rematch of the dramatic game in November. Josh Allen is 4-1 in the regular-season games against Mahomes and Co. … and 0-3 in the playoffs. That’s a powerful storyline in itself. Maybe it’s Buffalo’s time.
Yet this is deeper than that. It’s about dethroning the champ. Or people just wanting to see someone fresh in the winner’s circle.
You’re up, Buffalo. With so many honorary members of the Bills Mafia suddenly pulling for you — if for no other reason than to beat the Chiefs.
Bottom line: Don’t hate on the Chiefs. Just beat ‘em. If you can.
Follow Jarrett Bell on X @JarrettBell.