It’s another end of an NFL season, another season where the Kansas City Chiefs have reached the top of the pile and are set to contend for another Super Bowl.
Back in the 2019 season, when the Patrick Mahomes-era Chiefs first reached the Super Bowl, they were seen as underdogs that were worth cheering for.
Cut to today and that couldn’t be further from the case. Now, the team is definitively the NFL’s Big Bad Wolf and seen by many as the villains of the league.
It’s so much so that many fans of the sport believe that the Chiefs and the referees are conspiring to ensure that Kansas City wins games – a claim that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has dismissed as a ‘ridiculous theory’.
Theory or no theory, the Chiefs are flat out disliked outside of the Great Plains. Mahomes even recognizes this himself, addressing how his team is viewed at Super Bowl Opening Night on Monday.
‘I don’t even think it’s embracing being the villains. We embrace who we are,’ Mahomes told reporters.
Patrick Mahomes says the Chiefs are embracing who they are amid ‘villain’ narratives
The Chiefs have won two Super Bowls in a row – and three in total with Mahomes at the helm
The Chiefs are now men on a mission – trying to be the first team to win three straight тιтles
‘We believe we play the game the right way. We believe we play with a lot of heart and a lot of pᴀssion for the game.
‘And we win football games, and if winning football games makes you a villain, we’re going to keep going out there and doing it.’
It’s a similar message to what Mahomes said last year at Super Bowl LVIII: ‘I just like winning. If you win a lot and that causes you to be the villain, I’m okay with it.’
Essentially the message is simple: success breeds contempt and the Chiefs have been experiencing a lot of success lately.
The Chiefs don’t care about how they’re perceived. They’re too busy trying to do something no other NFL team ever has: win three straight Super Bowl тιтles.
After beating the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII and the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, they have the chance to finish off the trifecta on Sunday.
This time, it’ll be a re-match of that first Super Bowl in the set – with the Eagles preparing to take on KC.
