Chiefs reach final boss status, and everyone hates it

Roger Goodell is correct.

Look, I'm as surprised to be writing those words as you are reading them. These aren't four words that are often strung together in that order.

But the NFL commissioner has a point when he says the idea that the Kansas City Chiefs receive preferential treatment from officials at the behest of the league is a "ridiculous theory," as he did this week at the Super Bowl.

The NFL has 32 owners, all with their own self-interests. There's no reason for any of them to countenance favoritism of one team at the expense of the rest, even if, as the conspiracy goes, the Chiefs are media darlings because of the presence of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Taylor Swift.

Does Mahomes draw a lot of roughing-the-passer flags in the playoffs? Yes. But he also plays the most postseason games and spends a lot of playing time scrambling around. Does he manipulate the system by faking slides and trying to steal a few extra yards? Also yes. However, until the rules are changed, that one's on the defenders who get suckered into his trap.

But even if the Chiefs aren't secretly in cahoots with Big Referee, they make excellent villains.

Asked at the Super Bowl how he felt about people hating his team, Kelce deadpanned: "People hate the Chiefs? I didn't know that."

Answers like that are one reason people hate the Chiefs.

In truth, they're something of a non-traditional villain. Some franchises achieve that status by buying up free-agent stars and exploiting their big-market status. The New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Los Angeles Lakers are good examples. The NFL's financial parity doesn't allow for that kind of imbalance, so teams only become annoying when they reach a level of sustained success.

The New England Patriots teams that dominated for the better part of two decades are the most obvious examples. But even there, the villain characteristics were much more pronounced.

Bill Belichick, the franchise's grumpy avatar, didn't attempt to be charming or even pretend that he cared what anyone thought about him or his team. He was ruthless and gruff, and, even more frustrating for his many detractors, he was so damn successful. You could convince yourself that the Patriots dynasty would be derailed by the loss of Adam Vinatieri or Wes Welker, but then Stephen Gostkowski would make every kick and Julian Edelman would catch every high-leverage pass.

The Pats also had a whiff of scandal about them. There was Spygate and Deflategate. And whatever one thinks about the actual merit of either controversy, New England and its fans took considerable offense at the notion that they were cheaters, compounding the frustration of all the other teams' fans. The Pats and their trophies were annoying enough; New England being aggrieved champions was too much.

The Chiefs don't have that baggage - unless you're a referee conspiracist. Head coach Andy Reid was something of a lovable loser before Mahomes arrived to turn around his playoff fortunes. And Mahomes, especially in his early years, was such a spectacular player, an NFL quarterback as a trick-shot artist, that he was hard to root against. Steph Curry in a red helmet.

It also didn't hurt that Kansas City ascended right when most of the NFL fandom was truly sick of the Belichick-era Pats. Tom Brady hit his 40s and still looked handsome and thin. He could still lob a pass in the direction of Rob Gronkowski on third down and have his tight end haul in the ball with a defensive back literally hanging off him. It was infuriating.

The Chiefs finally put an end to that, but now they've become what they once destroyed: the team that wins so much that everyone is tired of all the winning. And where once they were the thrill-a-minute Chiefs, with Mahomes throwing no-look passes and Tyreek Hill busting loose for 80-yard touchdowns, now they've become more controlled, relentless, and even a little boring.

Kansas City can grind you to death. The Chiefs have perfected the art this season, pulling out games they should've lost, piling up an absurd streak of one-score victories, and somehow losing just one game that they were trying to win all season, even as it was generally agreed they were far from the league's best team.

That's when you know they've reached the Pats' final boss level. Belichick's teams would shed talent every winter, and it'd seem like they might actually be vulnerable. Then Malcolm Butler would jump a route, or Edelman would catch a ball an inch off the turf, and they'd be champions again. It was inevitable, which took a lot of the fun away.

That's pretty much where we are with the Chiefs. Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia: they all could claim to have looked better than Kansas City this season. Advanced metrics would back them up. But the Chiefs kept winning ugly, keeping the quest for a three-peat alive - the jerks.

"If winning football games makes you a villain, we're going to keep going out there and doing it," Mahomes said Monday.

The worst part is, he's probably right.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.