It hasn’t been pretty…
It’s hard to imagine Chiefs fans getting super down on the team had they lost.But the 49ers faithful sure are. It’s almost as if 49ers fans feel entitled and are angry that the team let the town down.
“If they made the mistake of opening up their social media apps or turning on the TV talking heads Monday morning, (the team) would learn that they had FAILED MISERABLY,” grouses SF Chronicle sportswriter Ann Killion. “They would see fingers pointed because SOMEONE IS AT FAULT.
“As 49ers assistant coach Katie Sowers tweeted Monday morning, as part of a bigger thought, ‘This loss has unfortunately reminded me of the hatred in this world.'”
Hatred?
Is it possible that Chiefs’ die hards would be hating on our the team had it lost?
“There is something about the NFL that brings out the ugliest sides of some people,” Killion continues. “Maybe it’s the booze. Maybe it’s the gambling. Maybe it’s the violence of the game. It’s not just enough that the game was entertaining, that both teams played well at times and not so well at others, that one of the transcendent athletic stars of our time shone in the brightest moment. There has to be anger and sometimes frightening hostility unleashed toward the losing team.”
Not flyover country-like disappointment, but “anger” and “frightening hostility.”
Worse yet…
“In the course of seven minutes in the fourth quarter, coach Kyle Shanahan became a boob, Jimmy Garoppolo became an embarrassment, the 49ers’ defense became overrated and the whole season became a disaster…
“There will be an offseason of asking why. Of replaying those final seven minutes over and over.”
Killion even mixes in a bit of oddball body shaming.
“A team never gets to experience that first taste of success twice,” she writes. “And even if the 49ers get back to the Super Bowl, they will have expectations and history. A shadow and a narrative. Shanahan couldn’t get away from a story line three years in his past with a different team, so the ‘can’t hold on to a lead in the big one’ tag will follow him. He will be this era’s younger, skinnier Andy Reid.”
Shanahan will need to grow a massive walrus-like mustache to fulfill that imagery.
Going in to the big game the San Francisco media were writing stories about how cool, calm, collected and confident the 49ers were. Singing the team’s praises and saying they were bound to win it all.
A reminder of the fine line between love and hate, I guess.
OK, this time I watched the Super Bowl at Green Valley Ranch Casino in Henderson, Nevada. I wore a blue Royals T-shirt over my red Chiefs T-shirt and it was a good thing because there were tons of rowdy 49ers fans whooping it up. Prob 80% 49ers fans compared to 20% Chiefs fans. The lowlife 49ers fans(I gotta say KC fans look and act like 1st class citizens compared to these scummy SF fans) were so bad I almost left around midway in the 4th Qtr. Once Mahomes and Co. started coming back they got deadly quiet, with the occasional “aarrgghh!” and/or pounding fist on table.
When Darien Williams ran into the endzone for the coup de grace all those 49 fans GTFO, the casino sports-book was practically empty in no time flat. In one corner were a bunch of KC Chiefs fans from Hawaii(a lot of locals from Hawaii live in the Vegas area)..they were all decked out in their Chiefs jerseys, jackets, shirts, hats, glasses and man they were really celebrating but much more innocent and harmless, much more behaved in compare to the 49ers fans.
I stuck around for awhile then headed out to the parking lot it was around 7PM local. Even though it’s been pretty warm in the Vegas area for the last couple of weeks I noticed a sharp turn in the weather..by the time I got to my car it was cold and windy with detritus flying around all over the place. Of course I was so happy I couldn’t let this downturn in the weather bring me down.. but I always pay attention to signs and symbolism. I’m not sure exactly what the cold, dry, blustery weather was telling me but I made sure to enjoy the moment for all the longtime suffering KC fans, the team, Chiefs management, and especially Andy Reid.
“(I gotta say KC fans look and act like 1st class citizens compared to these scummy SF fans)”
– closer to home, Kansas City (the other lesser known one, Missouri) those salt of the earth mid-west values were on full display Wednesday… no firm consensus on crowd size (one report pegged it at 850k, which would exceed the citizenry both little kc and big KC); a nod to Steve Martin’s comedy count – “There must be 57 t(w)its out there!”
At least.
Like the great flood of ’51 things did not go swimmingly for local yokels based reports, drowning an mustard yellow and ketchup red sea poor deportment, variously: boorish behavior as vulgarities spoken, fueled the usual suspects: rotgut, narcissism and trash – but enough about the swiss chiefs.
Also there ‘face time’ were politicians hugging babes and trying glad-hand future votes – not standing room only – stacked (before falling out of) trees, making in-roads where none existed cars, order get a better look. Conclusion: an ‘once every 50 years’ fortuity proved too much to handle, moment too big for them – it was as if they had never been there before… still aren’t (‘wait till next year’ part 2020 verse 51…the legacy continues)
😎