The Kansas City Chiefs looked more like chumps Sunday night, suffering a thrashing in Super Bowl 59 and I couldn’t be happier.

I’m old enough to remember going to St. Louis Cardinal football games when my grandma had season tickets right next to Roger Wherli’s parents.

As such, that also makes me old enough to remember quite vividly the heartache of the 1985 World Series when the baseball version of the St. Louis Cardinals lost a World Series in 7 games … to the inferior cross-state Kansas City Royals.

Since then, I’ve cheered against everything Kansas City at any opportunity, with the possible exception of a few barbecue places.

As much as I hate to admit, its been tough the last few years for anyone cheering against the Chiefs as they advanced to five Super Bowls in six years.

But it got a lot easier Sunday.

I’ve noticed since moving back to the St. Louis area, with the absence of the football Cardinals and the subsequent abandonment of the Los Angeles Rams, this has become Chiefs territory. While it may betray my childhood disdain, I recognize I’m in the vast minority.

Which makes me wonder: Have the Chiefs and their most recent success poisoned St. Louis’ chances at another NFL team?

Considering the Chiefs’ popularity, coupled with their success over the last several years, if the NFL were to relocate a team back to St. Louis, would there be enough of a fan base to support it?

If St. Louis were to get an NFL team, it would either be an expansion one or a retread from another city. Either way, the team will likely stink at least initially as successful teams don’t move and expansion ones usually take years to start winning.

Consequently, with each TV set tuned into Chiefs’ games and every Patrick Mahomes jersey sold on the east side of the state, it seems less and less likely the NFL will bring a competitor in the market. No need to anymore. They’ve saturated the market with an existing product.

Of course, with the increasing trend of spending public dollars on stadium projects, maybe it’s for the best St. Louis doesn’t have a team. The St. Louis Board of Aldermen and its recent trials and tribulations associated with spending leftover NFL money from the Rams leaving town may be a testament to the assertion the city doesn’t need a team.

And I’d argue we certainly don’t deserve one. Kansas City. Bleh. My 14-year-old self from 1985 certainly wouldn’t approve.

Super Bowl Commercials

Personally, I thought the two commercials featuring the Pickleball hustlers and the long-lost brothers with David Beckham and Matt Damon were the best.

As always, the Clydesdales made their annual appearance in another well-produced and popular Budweiser commercial, which certainly represented St. Louis and thus Missouri better than the Chiefs did (okay, that was a cheap shot).

Another commercial that rated well was the Lays potato chip featuring the little girl, planting, caring for and harvesting her little potato to put in the wagon with the rest of the ones her dad raised.

So cute. So sentimental. A real tear-jerker.

Too bad it was all fiction though.

About 10-15 years ago, when I first got married, I had the opportunity to witness first-hand the behind-the-scenes operation of a major supplier for Lays potato chips.

My father-in-law worked at a corporate-owned farm (not a family owned one) that provided Lays with potatoes. There were a lot of conveyor belts, semi trucks and of course, immigrants, some of which I’m certain weren’t in the country “legally.”

What there wasn’t was cute little girls.

I mentioned conveyor belts. The way it worked is the potatoes were on the belts and the scores of immigrants standing over the belts would visually inspect the potatoes. If they looked okay, the potatoes went into the semis for Lays to use.

If the potato looked rotten, or nasty, or whatever, it went into a separate pile.

I asked my father-in-law what happened to the nasty potatoes. Were they just thrown out? Oh no he said. They went to another company. One that made instant potatoes.

I never was a fan of instant potatoes before that day and in fact, was already in the habit of asking at restaurants if the mashed potatoes were real or not. Seeing that pile of rotten potatoes and knowing where they were going didn’t do anything to dispel that.

Poor Taylor

Another memorable moment of the Super Bowl came when fans roundly booed Taylor Swift.

Swift took the booing in stride with a coy smile, and I imagine that’s because she understood perfectly, even if many others don’t.

Swift is from the Philadelphia area and had been an Eagles’ fan until she jumped on the Chiefs’ bandwagon after she started dating their tight end, Travis Kelce.

Philly fans are hard core and they aren’t going to accept that kind of disloyalty.

Coupled with her opposition to Donald Trump, who received far more cheers than Swift at the game, and I’m not surprised at all she received that kind of response.

Remember, these are the same fans who once booed Santa Claus. Much like her boyfriend, there was no way she was getting a pass

(Okay, that was a bit of a stretch and another cheap shot, but it was for Whitey Herzog, Joaquin Andujar and the rest of the 1985 Cardinals.)

Gregory Orear is the General Manager/Editor of the Lincoln County Journal, Elsberry Democrat and Troy Free Press. While he tries to dislike all things Kansas City, he reluctantly admits Gates barbecue sauce is some of the best. He can be reached at gorear@cherryroad.com