Who Do We Root For, Redux
This is not a comic I wanted to become a running gag but here we are!
Seriously. If you asked most football fans at the beginning of the playoffs what matchup they wanted to see in the SB the least, I feel confident this would have been #1. The Chiefs are a team that nobody outside Chiefs fans wanted to see here again. They’ve crossed the Patriots line and have turned success into a boring routine with an air of deflating inevitability. It’s not fun watching the Chiefs win anymore. It’s boring. It’s the same shit all over again. It’s another fucking year with the same crew standing on the mountaintop while the rest of us wait impatiently to get off Mr Mahomes Wild Ride. Chiefs fans have completely become Patriots fans. When I called them boring on social media recently, I saw all the exact same arguments that Patriots fans used to throw at me about “how could greatness be boring” and blah blah blah. Once you reach that level your perspective is so warped that many struggle to place themselves in the shoes of regular fans. It’s like what happens when a regular person becomes a millionaire or billionaire. They don’t understand normal people anymore. They don’t truly understand why the rest of us want them to just fuck off. Most of us weren’t rooting for the Bills on Sunday just because we want Buffalo to be happy. We also just didn’t want to see the Chiefs anymore.
I suspect most casual or neutral fans will be rooting for the Eagles. I am obviously not neutral in this situation and would rather see Philadephia nuked from orbit than win another Super Bowl, but I totally understand that’s division-rival hatred driving me and that will not be driving most people. But despite the Eagles being the more likable team, they still aren’t exactly well liked! Nick Sirianni is a big douchey heel that everyone wants to punch. The Tush Push is extremely annoying every time we have to watch it and many people want it taken out of the game. Howie Roseman is the GM equivalent of “he can’t keep getting away with it!”. If you hate the Georgia Bulldogs, well, you also hate the Eagles. Of course, all of that pales in comparison to the general distaste and negative reputation of the fanbase. Eagles fans, fairly or not, have a reputation for being obnoxious and rude, and even violent. Also Fly Eagles Fly is a very annoying song.
Worst of all, it’s a fucking rematch. Of a game we saw just two seasons ago. We already had this matchup. We don’t need it again. This is what stings. Did Chiefs fans really want to see the Eagles as the opponent again? Did Eagles fans really want to see them face the Chiefs again? We couldn’t get one year of the Ravens? Or Bills? Or Lions? Or Vikings? Rams? Even the Bucs don’t feel much like the Brady squad from a few years ago so that would have felt fresher as a rematch than this. Pretty much the only thing about this rematch that feels new is Saquon.
Like I said in the weekly report: I think Saquon is the difference this time. James Cook pretty much took over the Bills game in the second half until the idiots in charge stopped using him. If Cook could do that to the Chiefs defense, Saquon can do worse. As long as the Eagles aren’t stupid and move away from the run game. Knowing Sirianni, that isn’t out of the question. This is the team that tried to have Hurts run around while he was injured and immobile against the Rams and that mistake almost cost them the game. I think the Eagles are the better team entering this game, but the Chiefs are the ones who always play perfectly to the moment. We’ll see in two weeks.
If anyone even watches the game. I would not be surprised if this game has lower ratings than usual.
Everyone said this about the giants patriots rematch in 2011 and it had higher ratings than Steelers cardinals!
Come on, people are still going to watch the game, after all, they’ve got all those high-budget, creative commercials to see between the plays!
…
Like 75% of them are going to be some form of Generative AI bullshit promo, aren’t they?
christ don’t speak this, even though you are right
I will never forget the Crypto Bowl. The larry david FTX ad is etched into my brain.
There’s gonna be food and I can watch a halftime show that might be good. I can stomach a bit of apathy over the game itself.
As an Eagles fan, I knew they were going to win the NFCCG about two weeks ago when I realized that no other team could come out of the NFC and get as many people to root for the three-peat. This team is just more gym mats being stuffed into the meat grinder to make even worse State Farm commercials.
The worst thing about the Chiefs is, Tom Brady retired, the Patriots went to crap, and we thought we were finally free and then NOPE, along come the Chiefs to slot right into the hole they left behind only they aren’t even as compelling in the role of the villains. You could really loathe Brady and Belichick, rooting against them was like rooting against the Death Star. The Chiefs you just wish someone would drag off the stage so someone else can have a turn.
The Brady-Belichick Patriots basically dissolving as the Chiefs ascended is a contributor to the fatigue too I think. The Chiefs didn’t vanquish the Patriots. They probably would have, but they did not get the opportunity. The Death Star wasn’t blown up, it broke down at Dantooine and stayed there. Or rather, they won a boxing title belt fair-and-square, but it was a vacated title belt. Not their fault, but also not compelling.
It’s similar in some ways to the malaise the NBA went through post-Jordan. Though the 1998-1999 lockout contributed to the issue, the Shaq-Kobe-Phil Jackson Lakers dynasty did not capture the imaginations of the public the way Jordan’s Bulls did because they didn’t beat Jordan’s Bulls to reach the top. Jordan, though, had the compelling narrative… his Bulls beat Isiah’s Pistons, who had beat Magic’s Lakers, who had beat Bird’s Celtics, who had beat Erving’s 76ers.
Heck, even Brady and Belichick got their start by conquering the “greatest show on turf”. Those Rams weren’t a dynasty, of course, but they looked primed to be one at the time.
Although, you’ve gotta notice, it’s been satisfying seeing Pats fans complain about this match up for all the same reasons everyone else does, as if 2001-20 never happened.
Just dream of how little success Dallas has had the last 30 years, and maybe NE will be back to the lame-o Patsies of the 1970s.
The weirdest development in all of this is how many non-Patriots fans I’ve seen that are now trying to push the idea that the Patriots Dynasty wasn’t all that bad, or at least better than what the Chiefs are doing now, as if the same issues weren’t brought up against them for the entirety of that run on top of 2 (obligatory “albeit bogus”) cheating scandals that lit the world on fire.
Like, we’re only 5 years removed from the end of the Pats’ run.. There’s no way people forgot about it THAT quick, right?
I mean, it’s the Super Bowl. Even Browns-Titans would easily pull 100 million average viewers.
Crap, I meant to put Giants and not another AFC team
I mean, you have to admit a Super Bowl that’s technically impossible would pull in more viewers than normal. Or at least generate a lot of chatter as to how the hell that happened in the first place.
Browns-Titans could happen. Browns could get a owner and Titans could get swapped into the NFCS. Implausible, bot not impossible.
Truly impossible is Lions & Bills overcoming their curses in the same season to make it to the Super Bowl together. If the stars were ever going to align for that, it was this year, and it didn’t happen.
Eagles fan, I was rooting for the Bills to come out of the AFC because if we’re going to fall short again I’d much prefer it be the first win for a long-suffering fanbase, and an Eagles win would have completed Buffalo’s Infinity Gauntlet of NFC East Super Bowl losses, which would be hilarious. Instead, we’re at a point where even those of us who were thrilled to see Reid finally win his first title wish he’d have a damned down year or five.
I wanted to see the Bills/Birds happen just to see New Orleans bar owners make BANK. Granted, their folding table inventory and lampposts would be decimated, but GOOD LORD would it be entertaining to see 2 brainless, knuckle-dragging fanbases take over NOLA.
Eagles/bills was the most interesting potential matchup to me.
The Eagles either become the only NFC East team that can’t beat the bills, or they join the rest of their division.
Tom Brady being forced to call Mahomes’s three-peat would be kind of funny, at least.
This is the only thing I’m living for right now. “Gee, Tom, this victory pretty much seals the Kansas City Chiefs as the greatest of all time, don’t you think? I mean, have you ever seen a better QB than Pat Mahomes?”
“Uh, em, well… *breaks down sobbing*”
Look, I get it. As a lifelong Eagles fan, I absolutely can’t stand 95% of us. I was skeptical of the Saquon signing because I was all but certain his MCL was comprised of discount hair ties and scotch tape. I was wrong. I think Hurts is a fine QB who would 100% choke in the playoffs. Wrong. The secondary is suspect. Wrong again. Do I think the Chiefs have the formula down to a science and will likely win on a last-second FG, and the only people left watching will be the Swifties expecting a Travis Kelce proposal as the streamers fly or some shit? Yep.
BUT.
It’s in America’s best interest to see Sassy Patty and his twinkle fingies go back to being annoying and unremarkable and out of the record books. If they lose this one, they’ll start fading next season. They’ll lose the AFCG next year, Divisional the following year, and so on. The Eagles aren’t a dynasty, and next year the Commies will win the East. And the cycle will persist as it should.
Go Birds.
Here’s how I’m looking at it as a fan of football and talking football with my friends: If Mahomes gets the three-peat, I’m not certain the fanfare and favoritism can get much worse than it is. I mean, honestly, it’s already insufferable to hear announcers go on and on about what a special player he is. It’s not like they’re going to be MORE effusive. I don’t see how that’s possible. If he loses, then suddenly we have the “Michael Jordan” revenge line where pundits will claim “Mahomes needed this to find another gear” and “look at the mental fortitude to take that loss personally and come back with a vengeance”. There is nothing more aggravating than a fake “comeback” story about literally the most talented QB maybe in NFL history. I want to see that even less than 3-peat.
PLUS, I’m a salty Vikings fan and Philadelphia doesn’t deserve anything nice. If THEY are the ones to stop the 3-peat….we’ll never hear the end of it from those poop-eating, front-runner fans.
Oh believe me, it can get so much worse than it is. I mean Romo was practically creaming himself at just the thought of a threepeat at the end of the AFC Championship game.
To your point Dave about Saquon, I think Spags will be able to hold the Eagles offense enough that Mahomes and the offense will be able to out score them. Seeing how we schemed the Bills this past weekend was impressive. He deserves so much praise for what he does week in and out I expect the Chiefs D to be able to win the game.
Totally agree. After Mahomes and maybe Reid, I think Spags is the person most responsible for this Chiefs dynasty. 99% of other DCs that put up the body of work that he has, are gone for a Head Coaching job after 1 Super Bowl, let alone 3. Keeping the same DC for 5 years goes a LONG way in establishing and building a machine there.
The NFL is REALLY trying hard to get us to love the Chiefs. Now they are doing it by showcasing the horrible Eagles fans hoping to turn everyone into Eagles Haters.
I really like Andy Reid, and my dislike for the Eagles stems from my old Boss being a huge fan. So if he is unhappy I win. I guess I am rooting for the Chiefs by default.
In situations like this it is more important for me to pick the team that I want to lose the most. That way, I’m not REALLY rooting for a team I don’t like to win.
We’re gonna spoil the threepeat and Philadelphia will reign supreme once again
hell, i bet a seventh steelers win was more appealing.