If you opened any social media platforms this past week you saw the hate that was going towards the Kansas City Chiefs. Fans were calling on Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson to save fans from having to watch Mahomes and the Chiefs in yet another super bowl. This trend will most likely continue in the coming weeks as well but now focusing on San Francisco’s quarterback Brock Purdy. What might seem like a light-hearted joke is filled with a lot of truths; NFL fans are done seeing Mahomes and the Chiefs succeed.
When a team is successful for a long time, viewers are more likely to want them to fail. That pretty much goes without saying unless your team is the one that is consistently winning. We don’t even need to think back to not so long ago to the Patriots dynasty, a franchise that won six championships in under two decades. Tom Brady and the Patriots were hated outside of the New England area because fans were tired of seeing the same team in the super bowl repeatedly. I’m hesitant to compare the Patriots and the Chiefs because of the longevity but something more interesting was being talked about this weekend as well.
The thing that’s been pointed out that really stuck to me is the similarity between the Chiefs and the Houston Astros of the MLB.
Being a big fan of baseball, I know how seeing a team dominate consistently can get kind of old. When the Astros made the world series back in 2017, MLB fans seemed to be rooting for them against the Dodgers and it was an exciting series taking all seven games. In 2019, they made their third straight ALCS appearance and made it back to the fall classic, eventually losing to the Washington Nationals.
Weeks after the final out, a cheating scandal came to light. Then came the pandemic, which created a shortened season with empty stadiums and allowed the below .500 Astros to sneak into the postseason and reach the ALCS again.
The cheating scandal elevated hatred towards the team, and even with years passed and minimal players left from those rosters, the Astros are still hated for their success.
The Chiefs are in a similar situation. In Mahomes’ first playoff action he was pitted against Brady and the Patriots in the AFC Championship. Fans rallied behind him and the Chiefs hoping someone could stop Brady from yet another super bowl appearance. While the Chiefs failed to get the win, the very next season they got past the hump, taking down the 49ers for their first super bowl since 1969.
This is where things get a little weird.
Every AFC championship game since 2018 has had the Chiefs and every ALCS game since 2017 has featured the Astros.
Since 2017, the Astros have appeared in four World Series (2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022), and have won two (2017* and 2022). With the win on Sunday, the Chiefs will be playing in their fourth Super Bowl (2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023), and have won two as well (2019 and 2022).
Another eerily similar situation that has come up is the dominance over a particular New York sports team during both teams’ runs. Kansas City has the Buffalo Bills number, beating them as recently as this year in the playoffs while owning a 3-0 record against them in the postseason with Mahomes at quarterback. Houston on the other hand has a similar foe in the New York Yankees, a team they’ve met in the playoffs. Dating back to 2015, the Astros and Yankees have played four series against each other. Houston has won all four meetings. This includes one wild card game during the 2015 season and three ALCS matchups in 2017, 2019 and 2022.
The last thing is that these teams have players that fans used to at the very least tolerate but cannot stand anymore.
Expanding what I opened with, it’s clear to see that NFL fans are done with seeing Patrick Mahomes in yet another Super Bowl. Mahomes hasn’t helped his cause either. Even just looking back at Sunday’s game there’s footage of him knocking over Raven’s kicker Justin Tucker’s stand so he could warm up, something Tucker didn’t really appreciate. A little further back in Week 14, Mahomes had to be held back from the refs after an offside call on Kadarius Toney, even went and complained about it to the opposing quarterback Josh Allen when they met up after the game.
José Altuve kind of plays that Mahomes role for the Astros too. Fans seemed to be on his side until the video of him refusing to take off his jersey after a walk-off, which fans believe he was wearing a wire that told him what pitch was coming. He receives the most backlash from fans—mostly due to his involvement with the cheating scandal—but he’s also been there since the beginning, just like Mahomes has been there for all the Chiefs’ success. Both have also won the regular season MVP award in their respective sport.
I don’t think that this is a perfect comparison, but I can at least see where fans are coming from. Nevertheless, Mahomes and the Chiefs will look to win their third ring since 2019 against the very same team they beat to get it, the 49ers. Houston, on the other hand, continued to build upon a strong roster, adding reliever Josh Hader to a multi-year deal as they try to stay competitive against their division rival the Texas Rangers who just won their first World Series.