Winning often breeds contempt.
Tom Brady and the dynastic New England Patriots experienced that as they won, won, and won again, and now it’s seemingly the turn of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Patrick Mahomes‘ Chiefs are gunning for an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat — a rare piece of NFL history they can achieve with a win over the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX on February 9.
However, the Chiefs’ continued success has led to a league-wide conspiracy that referees are biased towards them and give them favorable calls.
Those theories were exacerbated when Kansas City found themselves on the receiving end of questionable calls against the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills in recent playoff games, leading to calls for a Super Bowl boycott against the ‘scripted’ NFL.
Chiefs’ billionaire owner Clark Hunt has heard the theories, but laughed them off as ridiculous while making a telling Michael Jordan comparison.
“It’s just human nature,” the Chiefs CEO said at Super Bowl opening night on Monday when asked about refs being overly kind to his team.
“Our family was lucky enough to be involved with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s when they had their two three-peats, and there were a lot of similar comments made about the team always getting the calls, that the league was rigged for [Michael] Jordan.
“Which of course was absolute nonsense. The NFL is definitely not that way. All 32 teams are focused on trying to win a championship.”
Hunt is the son of Lamar Hunt, who not only founded the Chiefs –originally the Dallas Texans — but was instrumental in creating the AFC, which began as the AFL after repeated rejections from the NFL.
The elder Hunt famously coined the term ‘Super Bowl’, and was also one of the founding investors in the NBA‘s Chicago Bulls, who won six world championships with Jordan at the helm in the 1990s.
The Bulls dominated The Association under MJ’s leadership, with many at the time believing they received preferential treatment from the NBA as it was in the league’s financial interests to keep the Bulls relevant and winning.
Of course, it was absolute nonsense. The Bulls won because they were better than everyone else and had the world’s best player and a genius head coach on their roster — much like the Chiefs.
The ’90s Bulls and current Chiefs share many similarities, which will become even more pronounced should Kansas City capture the three-peat.
Hunt himself has compared his team to Jordan’s Bulls when Rich Eisen asked him about the ongoing narrative around referees.
He said: “I think, you know, depending on what stats you want to look at, you could come up with any conclusion. There’s certainly some stats that show us as one of the most penalized teams over the last seven or eight years.”
“And I think it’s only natural that you start having these kinds of conversations when a team has a lot of success.”
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Hunt added, “I mentioned the Chicago Bulls already. Just thinking back to that era there were a lot of commentators who made the same comments about the Bulls or Michael Jordan always getting the call.
“And I really think it was a case of the greatness of Michael Jordan and his teammates, uh, more so than the referees having an impact on those games.”
Hunt also believes Mahomes is a generational star like Jordan, and will ultimately be considered in the same breath as the basketball GOAT once his own storied career his over.
“It’s an amazing comparison but very deserving,” Hunt said.
“Patrick is still pretty young and hopefully, he has a long career ahead of him but with what he has already achieved, he certainly deserves to be on that level and considered among the greatest athletes ever in the history of North American sports.”
Mahomes still has a way to go to catch Jordan.
MJ was a perfect 6-0 in NBA Finals to go along with six Finals MVPs.
‘His Airness’ won his championship rings across three separate three-peats, between 1991-1993 and 1996-1998.
‘Showtime’ has three Super Bowls and three Super Bowl MVPs, but crucially has lost one big game appearance to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
However, there’s no doubt if Mahomes captures the first Super Bowl three-peat, he’ll be in conversations with Jordan and Brady until the end of time.
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