How did the Chiefs become the NFLs biggest villains?

LAS VEGAS — In 1976, Steven Spielberg articulated our contradictory low tolerance for success.

“Everybody loves a winner,” the esteemed filmmaker said, “but nobody loves a winner!”

As great of a storyteller as Spielberg is, his lament was not a prescient defense of the Kansas City Chiefs, the latest sensation to make the grave mistake of winning too much. Forty-eight years ago, Spielberg was a 29-year-old who thought “Jaws” was a masterpiece worthy of unrestrained appreciation. He allowed a film crew access as he watched the Academy Awards nominations. Instead of jubilation, the video captured disappointment.

Though “Jaws” went on to win three Oscars, Spielberg didn’t receive a best director nomination. He was confused that a record-breaking blockbuster failed to garner the undisputed critical acclaim befitting the first movie to surpass $100 million at the box office. In the acerbic way he said winner! to punctuate his dismay, you could almost hear the varying levels of success.

Greatness is admirable until it starts multiplying. Too many victories lead to too much hype, and no one loves a glory shark. That’s the reputation the Chiefs have acquired outside their fan base. They are the new apex predator of the NFL.

Six years ago, they were a treat, unveiling a unicorn quarterback to operate an avant-garde offense, thrilling while thriving. Now, with a third Super Bowl victory in the past five seasons within reach, the team that began as an entertaining successor to the exhausting New England Patriots dynasty is also a tired ol’ giant. Their continued prosperity makes them a victim of public fatigue.

“For some reason, everybody used to love us,” Kansas City defensive tackle Chris Jones said, answering a question from NFL Network’s Michael Robinson. “We used to be one of the most favorite teams. Now everybody’s like, ‘We’re ready for the Chiefs to lose.’ I don’t know why, what changed, what dramatic incidents happened to where everybody felt like we should lose now, but that’s okay. They can continue hatin’.”

In this climate of extreme celebrity overexposure, the Chiefs are aging faster than a Popsicle in a sauna. They seem old in modern fame years. It’s not really their fault. What are they supposed to do? Lose for the sake of parity? Should Patrick Mahomes have turned down that record $450 million contract and all those lucrative endorsement deals? Should Coach Andy Reid stop being funny in commercials? Should Travis Kelce dump Taylor Swift to appease manly men who don’t want to share football?

To some, the Chiefs have become villains, the monster monopolizing all the joy. It is a superficial way to characterize the annoyance they instigate.

You want to know what’s worse than a championship hog? A champion by default. During long periods between dominant teams, the game often regresses to a stale kind of parity, which belies the assumption that variety is more riveting. Every so often, sports need standard-bearers that generate equal amounts of love and hate. Sports need code breakers to propel the game forward. It’s no surprise that as the Patriots’ two-decade run ended — one in which Bill Belichick’s defensive game-planning sorcery complemented Tom Brady’s deft quarterbacking brilliance to win six Super Bowls — it spawned appreciation of a long-developing era of offensive creativity.

Along with Father Time, it took innovation to yank the Patriots from their pedestal. That’s what a winner! does for a sport. They are the target. Just as important, they can handle being the target. Shoot for as long as you need to get good.

“If you win a lot and that causes you to be a villain, then I’m okay with it,” Mahomes said.

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Mahomes is 28, the same age as Spielberg when “Jaws” was released. He will become the youngest quarterback to start four Super Bowls on Sunday. No quarterback under 30 had accomplished the feat. In six seasons as a starter, he has thrown for 28,424 yards and 219 touchdowns. His regular season record is 74-22. In the playoffs, his team is 14-3.

It seems as if he’s everywhere, talking with an unmistakable Texas accent and delivery Reid describes as “froggish.” As long-standing icons in multiple sports continue their inevitable retirement migration, Mahomes stands as the biggest, in-his-prime superstar in American sports. He burst into fame in the most spellbinding manner since Dan Marino, and by his second season running the show, he was a champion. In his third, he led the Chiefs back to the Super Bowl, only to be humbled by Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In his fifth, he became a two-time champion, outlasting the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII and engaging in an epic duel with quarterback Jalen Hurts. And here he is again, this time with a defense-centered team that has prospered as an underdog this postseason, vying for a third title that would vault his legend and Kansas City’s burgeoning legacy to stunning heights.

But if you’ve had enough of the Chiefs, it will seem like a three-ring circus.

Mahomes didn’t ask to be compared to Brady. He didn’t ask for uncontrollable fawning over his elastic arm and playmaking audacity. He isn’t an egotist or clout chaser who needs to convince you, so early in his career, that he is the greatest quarterback of all time. But in our debate-show sports culture, the argument has begun anyway. It only makes it harder to be a winner!, this running tally of accomplishments intended to settle the frivolous discourse. But no one can win those debates, especially not Mahomes, who should be left alone to amaze in real time.

“I mean, I’m not even close to halfway,” Mahomes said of chasing Brady’s seven championships. “If you ask me that question in, like, 15 years, I’ll see if I can get close to seven. But seven seems like a long ways away still.”

With the way we consume sports now, seven would seem like 17.

We binge ourselves on every marquee team now. There aren’t enough synonyms for unprecedented and best and greatest to satisfy that desire to glorify the present. And strong reactions go both ways. In this climate, it’s just as easy to exaggerate hatred and weariness about things that have barely begun.

It’s reminiscent of the Golden State Warriors, who went from refreshing champions in 2015 to a hate-garnering 73-win team the next season to, supposedly, the worst thing that ever happened to competitive basketball when Kevin Durant joined them the season after that.

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We manage to be hotter and colder than ever, all in record time. And amid the noise of traditional media, social media and technology, celebrities are both accessible and unavoidable. Problems with all this ubiquity manifest in the agitation over everything from the Taylor-Travis romance to the fit Mahomes threw over a penalty at the end of a regular season loss.

There’s little room for mystique, not the type that Michael Jordan maintained despite his transcendent journey through six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. Mahomes is whiny. Kelce has a big mouth. The Chiefs get too many favorable calls, and opponents make dumb, panicked decisions when facing them. It must be a conspiracy.

So to combat this unstoppable force, the Kansas City detractors will root for the San Francisco 49ers, a former dynasty whose five Super Bowls are tied for second most in NFL history. It has taken a 29-year title drought for the 49ers to rebrand as cute up-and-comers.

“I love what one of my mentors says,” said linebacker Drue Tranquill, who is in his first season with the Chiefs. “He says the praise of man is so fickle. It’s here today, gone tomorrow, up and down. And so it’s really important to stay grounded in the things that matter.”

That sounds like something Spielberg would say now. He is 77, too wise to be as brazen as he once was. He’s still a winner!, a creative genius blessed to receive adulation and Oscars hardware. Rapid success distorts perception. Longevity refines it.

Hate the Chiefs right now? Answer that question again in, like, 15 years.

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