Super Bowl 2023: Next Patriots? As Chiefs build dynasty, everyone starts rooting against them
PHOENIX — You used to like the Kansas City Chiefs. What happened?
The Chiefs were so easy to root for at the Super Bowl three years ago. They hadn't won in 50 years. Patrick Mahomes and his greatness was practically brand new. They were a fun story. Then they screwed up their popularity by continuing to win.
Unless you're in Kansas or Missouri, you might be one of those casual NFL fans who was complaining about the Chiefs being back in the Super Bowl for the third time in four years. Maybe you posted somewhere that the officials were rigging the AFC championship game so the Chiefs could get back to the Super Bowl (they weren't).
It all seems so familiar. Where have we seen this before?
"I remember being a kid in school and watching the New England Patriots win so much and being like, 'Dang, can somebody beat them?'" Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark said. "It's not even about if I liked them or not, it was just, they were always winning."
The Patriots won six Super Bowls. They made the AFC championship game eight straight years in the 2010s. Then the Chiefs came along. Five straight AFC title games. Two MVPs for Mahomes. Another Super Bowl.
The Patriots have been replaced. Now it's the Chiefs that fans are starting to root against.
"One-hundred percent," Clark said. "Who wants to see the Chiefs win nowadays? We're the only ones who have been winning the last few years, if you keep it real. Look at all the wins we've got. Nobody wants to see a team like that win."
Chiefs get overexposed
Being in the social media era has to play a part in fans starting to turn on the Chiefs after just a few seasons.
Surely there were fans who were sick of the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s or even Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers way back when, but you didn't hear it all the time. You also didn't hear about those teams all the time.
There's a 24/7 nature to NFL coverage and discussion that didn't exist decades ago. Mahomes can make a phenomenal highlight play and you're not just seeing it once on "SportsCenter" later in the day, you'll see it endlessly in the feed on your app. Mahomes and the Chiefs are overexposed because everyone is overexposed in this era.
And the Chiefs are playing more games than anyone because they keep making playoff runs. Just like Brady and the Patriots quickly went from a great underdog story to the NFL's villain, the Chiefs aren't as popular as they were just a few years ago. Fans would rather see someone new in the biggest games.
"The first year, you'd say they want you to win," Chiefs safety Juan Thornhill said. "But if you continue to make it to the Super Bowl, people get tired of seeing you there. They want to see a new team. So everyone is rooting against us now. That's fine with us."
The Chiefs haven't gone full Patriots yet. They aren't completely hated. They'd probably need a cheating scandal for that. But if they keep winning, more fans will be rooting for anyone else to take their place.
Are Chiefs building a dynasty?
You can't blame the Chiefs for winning.
Behind Mahomes, they have become the NFL's marquee team. They're on prime time as much as possible because networks assume they'll be good.
If the Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday to win a second Super Bowl in four seasons, the talk of a potential dynasty will start.
"As far as a dynasty, it's who wins Super Bowls," Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson said this week. "Right now you look at Kansas City, they've got a chance to talk about being a dynasty."
In the 1990s, Johnson's Dallas Cowboys were the dynasty. They were fun early in their run. Then as the Cowboys started to win more and all of them were happy to tell you about it, everyone started to root against them.
"Everybody didn't root against us! A lot of people did, but a lot of people rooted for us too," Johnson said playfully. "But yeah, everybody wants to knock the guy off at the top.
"People got all excited about Buffalo. People got all excited about Cincinnati. Because they expected Kansas City to win. And when you have Patrick Mahomes, you have a good shot at doing that."
The Chiefs will start to use the "us against the world" mentality as motivation. That's how the cycle goes. It will get stronger with a win on Sunday.
"These are the things you have to take heed to when you're the team guys want to beat, when you're the team that everybody is looking at like, 'Ah, they get the favor, they love them,'" Clark said. "At the end of the day, we're the Chiefs. Chiefs Kingdom, baby."
