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.
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.'”
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.
You should root for the Chiefs because SF is full of whiners who think it’s their right to win, and their coach is a coward who can only coach well when he’s in front in the game. That’s why! 🙂
As a Bills fan, I’m increasingly frustrated and annoyed by the Chiefs, who in this run of greatness (undisputed by me) really don’t seem to have endured much at all by way of struggle or difficulty. They’re starting to get that Patriots-esque whiff of “THESE guys, again?!”, and yet they’re never blowing anyone out or looking awesome along the way; they just keep piling up the 38-35, 27-24, 17-10 wins.
And then, to top it all off, one of them gets the girl. The Chiefs are the obnoxious good-looking rich guy from high school, all over again.
But if they win, MAGA goes insane. I get that. But honestly, my ability to find amusement in MAGA’s unhappiness is increasingly weak, and my desire to just see MAGA get curb-stomped into history is growing. So…go 49ers, I guess. And it would be cool to see Mr. Irrelevant stake his claim…but that will give even more fuel to all the people who throw rocks at Josh Allen because he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet…nah. Go Niners.