Homers' Corner: The Chiefs Kingdom is at Hand

Homers’ Corner is a monthly series devoted purely to fandom. Here, we celebrate the unabashed, crushing love we have for our "home" teams, our cities they belong to, the fields and rinks, the mascots, the band, the chest painting, the tailgating...the tattoo of it all branded on our souls. The blood of it all pumping through our hearts. 

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I was chatting with a co-worker about the Super Bowl when he said something that disturbed me: “I always liked the Chiefs because they were underdogs. I don’t think I can cheer for them anymore now that they’ve actually won it all.”

At the time, I let it go. I had used up a year’s worth of aggression watching that game. I didn’t have it in me to initiate the “Clearly You’re Not a Real Chiefs Fan” argument. But to a certain extent, I also identified with what my co-worker was saying. And that was what disturbed me.

I’ve been rooting for the Chiefs since I was a kid. For the most part, this has been a practice in masochism. The Chiefs were perennial underdogs with a signature move: they always found a new way to lose. I’ve watched so many games with grim determination, waiting for the moment, the mistake, and the loss that inevitably followed. I’ve seen four quarterbacks come and go, and as many head coaches. Nothing changed, not the Chiefs’ average season record, nor my allegiance. 

Kansas City fans are unshakable. Home game crowds at Arrowhead Stadium are the loudest in the NFL. There’s nothing unique about the architecture of the stadium; we’re just louder. More loyal. We had to be. Our team never brought home the trophy. We were in it, no matter what, because we identified as Chiefs fans. 

Then, back in 2013, Andy Reid became the Chiefs head coach. He signed a kid quarterback named Patrick Mahomes in 2017, and over the next two years, our beloved underdog team transformed into the leader of the pack. In 2018, the Kansas City Chiefs came within one game of Super Bowl LIII. The 2019 season was a rollercoaster, from Mahomes’s early ankle and knee injuries to the massive drama of the playoffs. 

In every post-season playoff game, the Chiefs were behind by 10 to 24 points. 

And, if you were a real Chiefs fan, every time, you knew, at the bottom of your heart, that they were going to find a new way to lose it all. 

Except they didn’t. 

They kept not losing.

When they could have given up, when it would have been understandable to do so, they refused. Team leaders Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Tyrann Matthieu, and Chris Jones wouldn’t let themselves be beaten. They used positive language. They supported and lifted each other up. They worked hard for every play, every point, and came from behind to obliterate their opponents.

They played their first Super Bowl in 50 years in the same Chiefs style. When long-time celebrity fan Paul Rudd was asked if he enjoyed watching his team play the Super Bowl, he said watching was “just pure nausea,” and that he “didn’t enjoy the experience at all.” I identify. I had about five heart attacks, with an existential crisis between the third and fourth that had me questioning all of my life decisions. But when all looked to be really, truly lost, the Chiefs found a new way to win.

With the emotional hangover of one of the most exciting football games I can remember and the words of my co-worker echoing in my head, I wonder. With a mercurial, two-season run to win Super Bowl LIV behind them, who are the Chiefs now? What do we do when the scrappy, flop-eared stray we loved transforms into a sleek, self-confident hound?

My first instinct—as a loyal Kansas City fan—is to do nothing. We love the winners just like we loved the losers. I don’t know where the Chiefs will go from here. I sincerely hope it’s to Super Bowl LV. But we’re in uncharted waters now. This shift in identity for the Chiefs will have an effect on us, too. The old-time fans are still more used to losing. What will cheering for a winning team do to the Chiefs fanbase?

Team sports give us something in common to cheer for, to argue about, and from which to derive identity. With Patrick Mahomes poised to become the NFL’s newer, better Tom Brady, it is likely the Chiefs will gain a new type of fan: people who want to cheer for a team that wins, or people who are obsessed with Mahomes’s talent, his youth, his stats. Our fanbase will change. Our collective identity will change.

Maybe we’ll become a version of the New England Patriots, a team that expects to win every game, whose fair-weather fans jump ship when things start to look grim. 

Or maybe something quite different will happen. In addition to stunning feats of athleticism, Patrick Mahomes is known for his generosity, humility, and inspiring leadership. Maybe, under the winning smile of our young quarterback, the abundance of the Chiefs will be passed to their fans. We’ll find new ways to support each other, to be kind, to solve our problems. Positivity will reign in the Chiefs Kingdom. We’ll set high goals, get up early, and work with hope. And our hard work will pay off. Our acceptance letters will come, our projects will take off, we’ll have financial success, our families will flourish, and, like Travis Kelce, we’ll truly understand what it means to fight for our right to party. Maybe the franchise will even let go of their name in favor of one that’s not culturally appropriative. 

Who knows? The Chiefs won the Super Bowl. Anything could happen.

Allison Wall has an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University. Her short fiction and essay work has appeared in Metaphorosis Magazine, Aphelion Webzine, Kansas’s Emerging Writers: An Anthology, and Classical MPR. She is the Book Recommendations and Fiction Editor for The Bookends Review. When she's not writing creatively, she tutors, edits, and teaches private music lessons. She blogs here, and tweets here.