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Haters are going to hate both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs as they shake it into the Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday.
When more than 100 million people in the United States tune into Super Bowl 59, a sizable number will do so with hopes that both teams can find ways lose in this battle of two wildly disliked NFL clubs.
Standout San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner didn’t hide his disdain when he was asked whom he’d be cheering for.
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“I really dislike both teams,” Warner told “Up & Adams” on Thursday. “I’m not going say ‘hate’; that’s a strong word.”
Even when he was asked which club he disliked less, Warner still couldn’t answer.
“I can’t say, because you have Kansas City, who has stolen two rings from me, and then Philly, there’s some bad blood there, as well,” he said.
Rampant anti-Kansas City and -Philadelphia sentiment has flooded social media and airwaves the past two weeks, though disdain for the Chiefs and the Eagles might not have that much to do with the players themselves.
Safe to say: Eagles fans have their detractors
There’s no surefire, objective way to measure pro football’s most despised fan base, but it’s probably not far-fetched to believe Birds backers are near the top — or bottom, if you will — of this list.
Eagles fans over the years have booed and thrown snowballs at Santa Claus and forced local law enforcement to literally hold arraignment court at games, and they can occasionally launch into misogynistic tirades.
Then there’s just normal game-to-game harassment of opposing fans.
A 2023 poll of NFL players by The Athletic found that Birds backers were considered to be the league’s most annoying fan base.
And Eagles fans can sometimes be their own worst enemies.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker pleaded with her constituents to take it easy Sunday night if the Eagles win and not climb any light poles in celebration.
“I want to be very emphatic about: Don’t climb light poles or anything else, please,” she said Thursday.
“We do not want anything to happen to any of you, your friends or your family members. So for your mayor, please just don’t climb on to anything,” she said. “That’s our golden rule.”
After Philadelphia’s NFC title game victory over the Washington Commanders, a Temple University student died after having fallen from a pole on 15th and Market Streets in Center City.
Familiarity (and winning) breeds contempt
The fastest, best way to earn villain status in American sports is by simply winning — and Kansas City has done plenty of that.
The Chiefs could become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. It will be the team’s fifth appearance in the big game in six years with a possible fourth title at stake.
And it’s not just the Chiefs’ winning; it’s the razor-thin manner in which they capture these big games that has gotten under the collective skin of millions of people.
Chiefs haters are convinced the team gets preferential calls from referees, and the baseless allegations forced the NFL and the labor union representing league zebras to publicly back refs this week.
NFL Network reporter Sara Walsh was struck by the villain’s role assigned to the Chiefs — in comparison with just six years ago, when Mahomes and company were painted as sympathetic underdogs who couldn’t get past Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
“The Patriots go to Arrowhead [Stadium], they knock off the Chiefs [and] everyone feels so bad for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs,” she said. “And then what’s happened when Mahomes and the Chiefs win their first Super Bowl? Everyone loves them. They’re the darlings.”
Multiple Super Bowl wins have radically changed the narrative.
“But then they keep winning, and they keep winning, and they keep winning,” Walsh said. “And now last night, if you look at the transcripts from Patrick Mahomes at the podium, the questions are like, ‘villain, villain.'”
Rooting against Taylor Swift, Swifties
Despite Taylor Swift’s box-office-breaking sales and long list of kind-hearted deeds, she still manages to cultivate a small but vocal group of haters.
Swift’s ongoing romance with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and the screen time she inevitably gets are the targets of vitriol, both real and farcical.
Comedic actor, New York sports fan and podcaster Michael Rapaport joked this week he’s looking forward to seeing how Swift’s makeup holds up to tears.
“I am hoping to see Taylor Swift cry,” he told Philadelphia sports radio station WIP. “I want to see if her mascara can hold up after a ginormous loss. We know she loves her man when he’s winning. But will she still ride with him if he takes a ginormous loss?”
Of course, Swift has performed in downpours, and her makeup has remained immaculate.
The Hater Bowl: Been there, done that
Before the Chiefs were America’s favorite winner to hate, Brady and his Patriots wore that crown of scorn.
“Saturday Night Live,” on the eve of the Philadelphia-New England Super Bowl of 2018, famously imagined the Patriots and the Eagles as Revolutionary War figures no one wanted to see succeed.
“They are the worst,” “SNL’s” Beck Bennett painfully said. “Is there any way they could both lose?”
