TAFS Mailbag: Bills' existentialism, rooting for the Chiefs and more
The Athletic Football Show mailbag is open for business.
On the latest episode Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen dipped into the questions and picked out their favorites.
Taking center stage: Should Bills fans give up hope of winning a Super Bowl? And is it really fine to be rooting for the Chiefs to make three-peat history?
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in 'The Athletic Football Show' feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Bradley (listener): Hey guys, love the show but I couldn't bear to listen last night (Sunday night's episode). Why? Because I'm a Bills fan. Should I give up on football and do something else with my Sundays? Is there any hope at all… will we ever get the ball to the top of the hill?
Robert: Why do you watch sports? Why do you love football? Is it solely to see your team win championships? I think that should be the goal every year. If you're rooting for a team that's not actively trying to win championships that would be extremely frustrating. If I were a Cowboys fan, I would just be staring into the distance for the next five years without understanding what to do with myself. But let's go back in history if you're a Bills fan. I'm old enough to remember J.P. Losman, Trent Edwards, Rob Johnson and what that felt like. If you're a Bills fan these days, you get to watch Josh Allen play football every Sunday. If I told you seven years ago you're going to have probably the second-best player in the league — a quarterback who will likely win an MVP award at some point and will go into the Hall of Fame — and will be on the doorstep of the Super Bowl every year almost guaranteed, you would sign that bargain 100 times out of 100.
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Derrik: To me, make it fun however you can make it fun. I am fully an advocate of if this team is (annoying) you and not fulfilling whatever you want out of a sport, then stop attaching yourself to them. That's perfectly fine, be a Josh Allen fan and then root for five other players on different teams if that is the best way for you to get enjoyment out of the sport. You obviously know the sport is great. So do whatever you can and take off any limiters that would make you not enjoy the sport. I'm very much an advocate of 'you don't have to be a fan of anything for life'.
Dan (listener): I'm not a Chiefs fan by any stretch, but I've always appreciated greatness. This entire playoffs should have been about their greatness and seemed to warp into the refs or the league. Especially from big accounts who seem to lead engagement farming Chiefs hate. Outside of my Chiefs-to-win-the-Super-Bowl bet, I found myself rooting for them because of how asinine the conversation around them had become. Since the Dolphins are never going to win a playoff game again in my lifetime, is it wrong of me to root for the Chiefs?
Derrik: This goes back to what I said earlier… do whatever makes the sport fun for you. If it's rooting for the best quarterback we've ever seen potentially making history with a third Super Bowl in a row, yes go root for that. I don't care if you're a fan of another AFC team. This is why the push to talk about the refs in the league — and if it's rigged — is really frustrating the Chiefs. One; they're not a villain in the way the Patriots were, where they actually did stuff that maybe could have garnered hate. But two, this is not just them getting there a second time… this is potentially history, something we've never seen before. Regardless of whether you hate this particular Chiefs team, this is an objectively cool thing. You will be able in 25 years to tell your kids or grandkids that you might have witnessed the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport. That should be something we're all rooting for, or at least glad that we got (to see). You don't necessarily need to root for the Chiefs to win it, but the fact that we're here is something that you should absolutely appreciate.
You can listen to full episodes of The Athletic Football Show for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.
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