Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule, all times Eastern, is the final week of the regular season.
The next post will be a single, post-season thread that'll include discussions about the playoffs and the Super Bowl.
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Buffalo Bills @ New England Patriots
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Carolina Panthers @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Cleveland Browns @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Tennessee Titans
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Denver Broncos
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Minnesota Vikings @ Detroit Lions
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM New York Giants @ Philadelphia Eagles
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Seattle Seahawks @ Los Angeles Rams
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM San Francisco 49ers @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2025-01-05 1:00PM Washington Commanders @ Dallas Cowboys
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Notes -
What I find interesting about the Chiefs is the low amount of haters they have. I think its because they started at the tail end of the Pats dynasty, and people were all hated out.
You and I must be running in very different circles. Of course, I’m a fan of a team in the AFC West, so of course I’m exposed to a constant stream of Chiefs hate. However, even in neutral subs like /r/NFL, I feel like I still see a ton of people complaining about the Chiefs, saying how sick of the Chiefs they are, making constant jokes about the refs colluding with the Chiefs, etc. The Patriots got a ton of shit for Brady being an overexposed pretty boy, and the Chiefs are getting that as well with the Travis Kelce Taylor Swift stuff.
You are correct that the Patriots got additional shit for the cheating allegations (Deflategate, Sypgate, etc.) which the Chiefs have not received, but I still think there’s plenty of fatigue with the Chiefs that will really start to boil over if they win another Super Bowl this year.
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I think it's because everyone simply agrees that Mahomes is the best QB in the league and his success is therefore deserved. It's hard to remember this, but the Patriots weren't supposed to have a dynasty. Even after winning three Super Bowls, Brady wasn't considered the best QB in the league. That honor went to Peyton Manning. It was supposed to be the Colts who had all that success, they just choked in the playoffs every year.
But it goes deeper than that. Even when they were good, the Pats were mostly an afterthought in the Boston sports landscape. The 1985 and 1996 teams made the Super Bowl, but even their own fans viewed them as frauds and weren't surprised when they got blown out. My uncle has always lived in Pittsburgh but has at various times had jobs that were technically in other cities and required him to travel a lot; in 2001, his job was based out of Boston. Throughout that entire season, he never got any heat from his coworkers. Even on the Friday before the Steelers played the Patriots in the AFC Championship game, there was no heckling, no one wearing Patriots gear, no one even said "boo". He returned to Boston the following week and found his coworkers had decorated his office with Patriots gear and spent the day jawing at him for the Steelers losing.
Now, my uncle has a tendency to think that everyone from every city he's ever had the displeasure of working out of is either a weirdo or a moron, but he holds the people of Boston in special disregard. They can't even do fairweather fandom right. If you're going to be cocky about your team winning, at least root for them all the way during a good season; don't wait until after they've already one and start acting like you were a lifelong fan. The Pats were always the No. 4 team in Boston and while the others had legends like Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Ted Williams, and Carl Yaztremski, they had, uh, Tony Eason? To see already obnoxious fans acting like their first Super Bowl victory was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream when they couldn't name five players on the team a few weeks before was revolting for most sports fans. And it's not like Boston is Phoenix where nobody cares about sports; they had no problem rooting for the Red Sox through decades of futility, but they can't muster any enthusiasm for the Patriots until after they actually win. Most people might not have known this history, but it was pretty easy to pick up the vibes at the time.
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