Raiders, 49ers fans agree: Neither team should win today

This is a tough Super Bowl for Bay Area football fans, but one that creates common ground.

When the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers meet today, it will be a matchup of teams that Las Vegas (Oakland) Raiders fans dislike. It's also a matchup of teams that San Francisco 49ers fans dislike.

If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, this is a rare situation where 49ers and Raiders die-hards can be friends. Maybe.

Raiders fans dislike the Chiefs because they've been a divisional rival for 60 years. Raiders fans dislike the Buccaneers because Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady was the beneficiary of a ridiculous "tuck rule" call in the playoffs in January 2002 that led the the New England Patriots winning the Super Bowl while the Raiders watched.

49ers fans dislike the Chiefs because Kansas City beat San Francisco in the Super Bowl last year. 49ers fans dislike the Tampa Bay because Brady is the man who has generally surpassed Joe Montana in most people's view as the greatest quarterback in NFL history. Brady has been an irritant for two decades.

So for whom should a Raiders or 49ers fan support today – or more accurately, which most deserves dislike? Let's use science.

Here are three categories, where the cities, teams and players rank and who deserves more disdain.

Dumb geography: As discussed last year in this space, there are two cities called Kansas City: One in Missouri, one in Kansas. Worse yet, they're next to each other. How dumb! Meanwhile, Tampa Bay is not a town, but shorthand for region: the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area in Florida. But the area is the Tampa Bay Area, not Tampa Bay. Calling the team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is like calling the 49ers the San Francisco Bay 49ers. Absurd. Which is worse: Kansas City.

Sick of seeing them: Tampa Bay's Tom Brady played college football in the last millennium, which means he played at Michigan in the same millennium that Columbus lived. He's been winning Super Bowls since 2001. It's time to go. Kansas City coach Andy Reid was named head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999, meaning he coached in the league in the same millennium that the printing press was invented. This year marks his 16th playoff appearance. It's time for both to go. Which is worse: Brady (Tampa Bay). He's a player, for crying out loud!

Cities' other teams: The Tampa Bay area (all the teams insist on calling themselves "Tampa Bay") has baseball's scrappy Rays, who lost in the World Series. It has the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning, which won the Stanley Cup title last year. It is the home for the Toronto Raptors NBA team this season (due to Canada's tight travel restrictions), the same Raptors who beat the Warriors in the 2019 NBA Finals. In short, Tampa is Titletown USA. Kansas City has the scrappy Royals, who lost to the Giants in the 2014 World Series and won it in 2015. It's the former home of the Sacramento Kings and has no NHL team. Which is worse: Tampa Bay, because we're sick of them winning.

The verdict: It's tough to root for either team, but Tampa (with a bunch of good pro teams and with Brady at quarterback) is worse. We'll hold our noses and hope Kansas City wins.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.