Elle Duncan’s Exit Sets Off ‘Stampede’ Inside ESPN
As the Chiefs have reached the doorstep of a Super Bowl three-peat, many NFL fans have grown fed up with their dominance.
A major storyline of the 2024 NFL season, and perhaps the storyline of the playoffs, was whether refs were favoring the Chiefs; right behind that was general fatigue with the ubiquitous Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Taylor Swift. In September, a song called “Anybody But The Chiefs” went viral on social media.
The NFL has near-seamlessly transitioned from one dynasty in New England to another in Missouri. But while America may have turned on the Chiefs faster than it did on the Patriots, the fatigue fans feel for Kansas City is nowhere near the pure hatred directed at New England through the second half of its dynasty, five journalists who have covered both teams tell Front Office Sports.
“I don’t think it’s even comparable,” says ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, who wrote the Patriots book It’s Better to Be Feared.
From Underdogs to Villains
The Patriots dynasty began with the team being viewed as the “country’s darling,” Wickersham says, or “lovable losers,” in the words of MassLive’s Mark Daniels. “They were absolutely the ultimate Cinderella story,” says NBC Sports Boston’s Tom Curran.
Led by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, both unproven and in their second years with the franchise, the Patriots beat the Greatest Show on Turf Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. It was the first Super Bowl after Sept. 11, 2001, and the Patriots—as hard as it may be to believe now—were widely embraced. New England won again in 2004 and 2005.
“The Patriot teams that won the first three Super Bowls were more about defense,” Daniels tells FOS. “Tom Brady was considered a system quarterback. So for the Patriots, I think the hate started coming in more so when the controversy started.”
And controversies didn’t just start, they piled up. Spygate in 2007. Deflategate in 2015. Mostly seriously of all, in 2013, tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested and charged with murder.
Also during these years, Brady, Belichick, and tight end Rob Gronkowski launched into superstardom. Brady had a messy 2006 breakup with actress Bridget Moynahan, who was pregnant, and married supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
Public sentiment around the team shifted dramatically.
To Wickersham, the tide had turned by January 2008, when Brady hurt his ankle and the New York Post ran the following cover:
“Who’s afraid of Tom Brady now? – Girlie man limps home.”
By the time the Patriots returned to the Super Bowl in 2015, with Deflategate in full swing, they were bona fide villains. They would also go on to win three of the next five Super Bowls.
“ I felt like the culture turned on the Patriots in a way that was really palpable,” Wickersham says. “ Whereas maybe there’s people who don’t like Randi Mahomes’s politics or what the kicker had to say, but I don’t think that it’s turned on the Chiefs quite like it did New England.” (Mahomes is also a subject of a forthcoming book by Wickersham.)
All the political firestorms around the Chiefs would have been child’s play to the late- dynasty-era Patriots. When Donald Trump first began running for president in 2015, Brady put a red “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker and then was coy about it for weeks. On the eve of the 2016 election, Trump read out a letter from Belichick congratulating him on a “tremendous campaign.” Vladimir Putin is in permanent possession of one of owner Robert Kraft’s Super Bowl rings.
The Main Characters
Brady faced a greater uphill climb than Mahomes; Kraft is much better-known than his counterpart Clark Hunt.
But the difference between head coaches Belichick and Andy Reid is perhaps the most stark comparison, the media members say.
“Andy Reid’s like Winnie the Pooh, and Bill Belichick, to pick another Disney character, is like Captain Hook,” Joe Sullivan, former sports editor of The Boston Globe, tells FOS. “Respect is one thing, but likeability is another.”
“As curmudgeonly as Belichick is, he’s a lot more enigmatic, I think, than Andy Reid, and as a result, kind of a little more interesting,” Curran says. “You’re not going to want to sit down and have dinner necessarily with Bill Belichick, but you do wonder what makes him tick. And I think the same goes with Brady.
“So I don’t think the Chiefs will ever get to a point where they’re as reviled as the Patriots, I just don’t ever think they’ll be even close to being as interesting,” says Curran.
The Chiefs have still faced their fair share of controversies, including a heap of player arrests and Reid’s son Britt serving prison time for a drunk driving incident that severely injured a young girl in 2021. (Britt Reid was a Chiefs assistant at the time and received a controversial pardon from Missouri’s governor in 2024.) Mahomes’s family has been a lightning rod for criticism, including over his father’s multiple drunk driving arrests and his brother’s sexual assault allegations. (Felony charges were dropped against Jackson Mahomes in that case.)
“The Chiefs seem to sort of escape unscathed from all those scandals, where the Patriots scandals stick,” Sullivan says.
The most persistent criticism of the Chiefs, though, is the notion that controversial calls tend to go their way. On Friday, Brady himself compared the complaints to the infamous “Tuck Rule” play that was pivotal to Brady and the Patriots’ first Super Bowl ring.
Though the dynasties overlapped, they mostly played out in different media environments. As Brady pointed out, he won three Super Bowls before Twitter was even invented; now conspiracy theories about the Chiefs blossom on platforms that were nascent when the Patriots were winning.
“I was at [Aaron Hernandez’s] house the night that it was kind of going down, standing in the driveway,” Curran says. “I wasn’t live-tweeting. I wasn’t doing hits from outside his house, and there weren’t guerrilla journalists there with us.”
Back then, it was easier for a singular narrative about the Patriots to emerge, Curran says. Now, more options exist with podcasts and social media for people to find “outlets that will tell you what you want to hear. You don’t have to listen to ESPN,” he says.
Chiefs Fatigue Taking Over
Hate might be a strong word to describe the country’s most-watched team, but fatigue certainly fits the bill. Compared to the last two seasons, Super Bowl ticket prices are down considerably this year, while NFL ratings are down slightly overall. (Though the Bills-Chiefs AFC title clash was the most-watched non–Super Bowl since 2009.)
“They have all these primetime games—on Christmas and Black Friday—and they play Monday nights, they play Sunday nights, and they’re in the playoffs, and they’re in the Super Bowl three straight years and five of the last six years,” Sam McDowell of The Kansas City Star tells FOS. “I just think people are tired of seeing the same actors, and are ready to see somebody new.” Indeed, the Chiefs played every day of the week but Tuesday this year, something not done in nearly 100 years.
The Chiefs are not merely super-famous; they are unavoidable. At least one and usually several of Kelce, Mahomes, and Reid appear in nearly every commercial break during an NFL game, and the tight end is dating one of the most famous women in the world in Swift. The novelty factor with the pop star has worn off somewhat, but Sunday’s Fox broadcast will be sure to cut to her repeatedly.
The Chiefs may even be getting punished for Patriots fatigue. Brady’s dominance of the league overlapped with Mahomes’s, with his Patriots beating the Chiefs in the January 2019 AFC title game and his Buccaneers beating the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. Either Brady or the Chiefs has appeared in eight of the last nine Super Bowls, nine of the last 11, and a majority of Super Bowls played this century.
Dynasty fatigue could explain why fewer fans are “rooting to see history,” as McDowell puts it—cheering for the Chiefs because they want to see a team win three straight Super Bowls for the first time.
Wickersham contrasts widespread distaste for the Chiefs’ and Patriots’ dynasties with the country’s love for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. He says most fans (outside of Eastern Conference rivals) rooted for Michael Jordan’s squad to make it to the NBA Finals, to see them win or someone try to take them down.
“It seems like our country’s relationship with true greatness has changed quite a bit,” Wickersham says. “There’s just a lot of people who don’t want to see a three-peat.”
