Tag: Kansas City Chiefs

Rooting interest for Super Bowl LVIII

At Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas

I’m gauging my rooting interest for Super Bowl LVIII. Now that the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions are not in contention, I have to recalibrate.

 

For the NFC, there’s the San Francisco 49ers. The team has won five Super Bowls. But they’ve won none since the end of the 1994 season, losing after 2012 and 2019, the latter to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-20. If the 49ers win, they’ll tie the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots with six.  I liked the team in the Joe Montana and Steve Young years.

 

My parents visited San Francisco in the late 1960s for my father’s business trip, which they enjoyed, in no small part because of this incident.   My sister Leslie and I went there in the late 1980s and enjoyed the place. And my favorite baseball player was stationed in centerfield there for several years.

 

For the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs have been in the Super Bowl for four of the last five years, winning two after 2019 and 2022,  so they are the reigning champions after beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35.
TS & TC

My singular pull toward the Chiefs involves the guano-crazy theories about a billionaire singer dating a Chiefs player.

 

“Theories about Ms. Swift are prevalent online, but suggestions about what her political motivations are, in terms of her relationship with the N.F.L., were promoted last month by the Fox News political commentator Jesse Watters.

 

“‘Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?’ Mr. Watters said during a broadcast. ‘Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.'”

 

From Newsnation: “On Newsmax, a conservative news network, one host took the Taylor Swift chatter to the level of obsession, decrying what he termed the ‘idolatry’ surrounding her and claiming it is sinful. Meanwhile, on One America News Network, host Alison Steinberg labeled Swift’s relationship with [Travis] Kelce a psychological operation (psyop), characterizing the entire spectacle as ‘bread and circuses on steroids.'”

 

The Hill notes: “Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate who has thrown his support behind Trump, is perhaps the most high-profile Republican to go after the singer so far, stoking theories that the NFL is rigging football games for Swift’s Kansas City beau as Democrats look for her endorsement.” Former Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus called such talk “a powder keg of stupidity.”
Yes, there are TS experts.

On Politico, Swift expert Brian Donovan explains in detail why the political right is targeting a rich, heteronormative pop star. “I think there is a cyclical reaction happening where we saw with the Barbie movie and with the Eras Tour, a kind of woman-centered cultural aesthetic take hold of the American imagination. And I think there’s a ton of backlash to that driven by real basic sexism and misogyny…

 

“I think what irritates conservatives the most is that this attractive, talented, wholesome, white, successful, Christian, self-made billionaire woman is somehow not on their side. I guess that’s because she is also intelligent.”

 

Oh, and she just made Grammy history with her fourth Album of the Year win. Maybe George Soros arranged that.

 

So my loyalties are split. Root for the team that hasn’t won the Super Bowl in three decades, or hope the other team wins and watch a certain segment of the population go insane.

Documentary review: Kelce

New Heights

After I had read that Philadelphia Eagles and NFL All-Pro center Jason Kelce was contemplating retiring from (American) football after the 2023-2024 season, I watched the Amazon film Kelce. It has become the most-watched documentary on Prime Video.

“Jason Kelce started documenting what he thought was his final year in the NFL “(2022-2023). “Instead, the film intimately captures the most epic year in Jason and Travis’s life.”

The viewer gets a detailed view of Jason’s life. His wife, Kylie, tells about their online meeting and strange first date.

During the offseason, Jason notes how beat up his body was. When he was a young man, his body bounced back quickly. Still, as an old man of 35 or so, with numerous broken and bruised body parts, he wonders whether he can recover well enough to play the game at an elite level.

And he is being paid a lot of money, an estimated $14 million in his 12th season, more than any offensive lineman in the NFL. Jason and Kylie have two young daughters, and he wants to be physically able to play with them. Then Kylie discovers she’s pregnant with their third child, due about two weeks after the Super Bowl.

What will Jason do if he retires? Real estate, farming? He asks some retired Eagles brethren, some of whom thrived while others struggled to find something nearly as rewarding.

Then, the brothers were offered the opportunity to “host the popular New Heights podcast with high-profile sponsors.” Jason has also appeared in various commercials.

Really?

Travis said something his older brother thought was BS, that once you win the Super Bowl and then lose the big game, your desire to win it again becomes even greater. Jason and the Eagles won the February 2018 matchup with the New England Patriots, 41-33. Travis and his Kansas City Chiefs beat the 49ers 31-20 in February 2020 but, a year later, fell to the Tampa Bay Bucs 31-9.

The Eagles and the Chiefs met at the Super Bowl in February 2023. This matchup, brother versus brother, made their mom, Donna, an instant celebrity. The movie was more interesting than I expected, given that the outcome of that last game was well-known.

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