‘They hate you because you’re winning’ – Fans debate Super Bowl winner after season of wild ‘rigged’ social media outrage

Thick fog saturated the Mississippi River on the morning of the big game.

Hours before kickoff for Super Bowl LIX, endless Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles jerseys were colored by blaring police sirens and rifle-carrying military personnel on the way from the French Quarter to the Superdome.

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The NFL and Super Bowl LIX took over New Orleans for a buzzing week, reminding fans and the media why the most unique city in America deserves to officially be in the Super Bowl rotation.

But NFL commissioner Roger Goodell also was forced to start the week by having to officially state that pro football wasn’t biased in favor of Patrick Mahomes’ team, while the season-long issue of pro-Chiefs refs only grew louder in New Orleans, hosting it’s first Super Bowl in 12 years.

Before Jalen Hurts vs Mahomes Part II in the big game, seemingly half of social media had already decided the outcome of the biggest sports event in the United States.

The NFL wanted the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl, again, apparently.

Even though there was no proof and none of the internet conspiracy theories made sense.

“Because their team’s just not good enough,” Chelsea, a Chiefs fan from Kansas City, told talkSPORT on Sunday.

“They said that before when the Patriots were playing,” added Wendy, also a Chiefs supporter from KC.

“It’s fun when they hate you because you’re winning. That’s the fun part.”

Chelsea was about to watch her fifth Super Bowl in person.

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The Superdome was sparkling before a Chiefs-Eagles rematch[/caption]

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The French Quarter was divided between Chiefs and Eagles fans[/caption]

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Tension built as the big game approached[/caption]

Which meant that she was a huge Chiefs fan before Swift filled up the KC bandwagon — or forced annoyed Chiefs haters to get louder and louder.

“I mean we love Taylor,” Chelsea said. “But that has absolutely nothing to do with football.”

Chelsea knew that the Chiefs were ‘obviously’ winning on Sunday.

But that was just because they were the best team, not because the NFL was in their corner.

“When my husband runs out of fingers for rings, I’ve still got 10,” Chelsea said.

“So we can keep going. We can go on forever.”

For months, Kansas City was simply the ‘luckiest team in NFL history.’

Andy Reid‘s Chiefs kept winning game after game by one-score margins in increasingly crazy scenarios.

Then the playoffs started.

The Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills followed tough defeats by publicly stating that they knew before the game the refs would favor the Chiefs.

“Everybody knows how it is, playing up here,” Texans running back Joe Mixon said.

“You can’t — you can never leave it into the refs’ hands.

“The whole world sees, man, what it is. It is what it is.

“When it comes down to it, you can’t never leave it into the refs’ hands.”

Add in Mahomes artistically redefining flopping along NFL sidelines, and the fury peaked after the AFC Championship.

Last season, the NFL was ‘scripted.’

Now, it was even worse — the NFL was ‘rigged.’

“That’s a ridiculous theory — for anyone who might take it seriously,” Goodell said at the start of Super Bowl week.

“This sort of reminds me a little bit of the script.

“That I write a script and I have the script for the season.”

While Goodell joked about the theory, fans piled on and wanted better answers from the biggest voice of the NFL.

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The Chiefs and Eagles were evenly matched on paper[/caption]

“The favoritism is clear,” one fan tweeted. “This commissioner is a joke.”

“Best keep an eye on this,” a second fan posted. “This theory that refs favor the Chiefs has been around for years.”

With cleaners pressure-washing streets and music blaring from windows in the French Quarter, a fan wearing a white Drew Brees No. 9 Saints jersey was joined by a man wearing a red, white and blue Trump No. 47 jersey.

Scott, an Eagles fan from Louisiana, was hours away from watching his first Super Bowl in person.

Was the outcome already rigged?

“I personally don’t believe that,” Scott said.

“I think most fans forget things that led up to that one play that could have turned it around.

“And I just don’t think there’s any interest for the NFL to do that.”

Scott acknowledged that refs ‘make bad calls’ and mentioned the NBA’s past problem with a heavily biased ref.

But it was too much to believe that the NFL had already scripted the outcome for a rigged Super Bowl, no matter what social media had already decided.

“Soccer — or football — overseas, they have the same argument,” Scott said. “That’s just fandom.

“Mistakes are made, no doubt about it. But go back and look at plays throughout the game where the tide could have turned.

“It’s the old adage, never leave it in the referee’s hands.”

Scott sounded just like Mixon after the Texans lost to the Chiefs in the playoffs — with a little help from the refs.

The Chiefs were loudly booed before kickoff.

Then Swift received the same bitter treatment, as the pop music superstar was loudly jeered by pro-Eagles fans.

An early flag against Philly that took away a fourth-down completion only increased the intensity, with Super Bowl LIX feeling like a historic heavyweight fight with more on the line than just a trophy.