I will have the great fortune to spend Championship Sunday with my son, won't be posting much during the games
Before I push off I wanted to clear the air about the perception of the Chiefs and the way officials call plays in their football games
By no means are the Chiefs hated nearly the same way as the New England Patriots back when they won 3 in 4 years, 2 other runs the Giants stopped and then another 3 in 5 years which was highlighted with Brady being convicted of fraud during inflategate and then of course you have the Patriots being fined multiple times for recording their opponents in practice and far more egregious types of cheating. I have never felt anything but respect for Andy Reid and his journey as an NFL Head Coach, one of the very best I've ever seen
I don't believe it's as hateful as some Chiefs fans would like to believe. I'm sure the Bills fans hate you because you often stand in their way. Most teams and their fans do not hate on you the way they were feeling when the Patriots were having their way. I can clearly remember the Pats DBs in the snow committing DPI on Harrison and Wayne yet it was never called it seemed. That one AFCC where Manning comes back and they go on and win the Super Bowl, part of why so many loved it was their hatred for the Patriots.
I don't think that many people are going to do barrel rolls for the Bills if they win the football game. I would say the Chiefs have way more fans at home and across the country
Don't take it so personal around here, it's just a message board.
Never any love lost between Fins and Pats fans.
In all seriousness I just wanted to touch upon a couple of things you mentioned:
1) Brady wasn’t convicted of anything for Deflategate. What it came down to was he [rightfully] didn’t trust to hand over his cell phone as part of the investigation, knowing how simple it would be for any of his personal data to be leaked. He was suspended by the league for not being complicit in their witch hunt. They didn’t prove anything, they just decided “more likely than not” that he was guilty of something. The Wells Report was merely confirmation bias. Spygate was also overblown, but in fairness the Pats did it to themselves. Even if they were recording signals, I can’t see how that would give them a competitive advantage given that those signals are changed all the time, and they’re changed all the time for the same reason coaches have always covered their mouths when calling plays: there’s already cameras everywhere and people can see anyway. If Spygate doesn’t happen then Deflategate isn’t a thing either, but the former set up conspiracies to conveniently dismiss the Pats’ success and allow stuff like the latter to come up.
2) I recall the Pats being fined and docked a 1st round pick for Spygate in 2007 and again fined and docked a 3rd round pick in 2021 for filming the Bengals sideline (something about a b-roll for a documentary). Still was dumb to even put themselves in that situation given their reputation at that point. But I don’t recall them being fined for taping any practices. If you’re thinking about the Matt Walsh story about allegedly taping the Rams walkthrough prior to Super Bowl 36, that story was already debunked and the Boston Herald guy who rushed to press to report it was forced to apologize for the error, but the damage had already been done. I am curious about these other “far more egregious types of cheating” you mentioned. If you can remember some examples that weren’t already discussed here then I’d like to hear them.
3) You’re absolutely correct on people loving the Colts comeback against the Pats in the 2006-07 AFCCG. The Pats already knocked off the upstart Chargers with the record-setting LaDainian Tomlinson, and they were well on their way to a 4th Lombardi trophy in 6 years. Peyton Manning was a beloved face of the NFL as one of its most marketable stars and captain of an exciting offense. Brady’s Pats were the obstacle in their way. So of course it was a sigh of relief to non-Pats fans to see somebody else get to the SB for a change. It was part people’s love for Peyton and part their hate for the Pats being too dominant. I can absolutely see that motivation starting to come around on the Chiefs. When one team is routinely beating others’ favorite teams, eventually that one team becomes a target of ire. There’s a lot of Mahomes/Kelce/Reid fatigue if you’re not a Chiefs fan. You’ll see one in virtually every commercial break of an NFL game whether the Chiefs are playing or not. It’s not too different from the dynasty 2.0 version of the Pats when we were (and sometimes still are) seeing Brady, Gronk, and Edelman in ads. I still think the Pats were hated more and going back much further, even as early as the tuck rule game against the Raiders, the narrative being the Pats were a fluke, they were a league darling because of the American symbolism and 9/11, it was a fumble and the league office was out to get Al Davis, etc. etc. That Pats dynasty if you include the entire two decade stretch was hated like an advanced version of the ‘90s Cowboys dynasty, and magnified more because of the internet and more media consumption. Well now we’re six years removed from the last time the Pats won a playoff game, that dynasty being a distant memory, and so while there is still some residual hate by those detractors who remember their dominance, it’s not what it was because they’re no longer a threat. The Chiefs were new and cool and interesting until they’ve started to remind people of those Pats who would always find a way to win and just wouldn’t go away. And with how some of those games have ended, it’s leading to a lot of animosity toward the Chiefs.
I say people have a problem with the way the Chiefs win these close games but it would probably be the same if they were blowing opponents out. That 2007 Pats team got a lot of heat for blowing out opponents early on, and then got heat for squeaking out close wins against the likes of the Ravens and Eagles. So even though they were winning, they couldn’t win either way. We’ve seen this script before and we’re seeing it now.
I do think more people want the Chiefs to lose than want to win, and even though FBG is a small sample size, I think you’ll find that to be the case in other online communities too. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. None of this noise matters. Everyone will have their opinions and theories and what have you but at the end of the day, if you’re lucky enough to see your team compete in a meaningful game, savor it. Let others pray on your team’s downfall, and bask in their tears when it’s unsuccessful. Or if your team does lose, just know that you had zero control over the outcome and be glad they got that far.
Sorry for rambling I meant this to be much shorter.
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