There’s never been a better time: Rename Chiefs now as the Kansas City Kings they are | Opinion

I am writing this in the middle of the night, hours after the Chiefs’ 38-35 Super Bowl LVII victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. Like many lifelong Chiefs fans over the age of 30, I doubted for most of my fandom that we would ever see a Super Bowl, let alone the dynasty we have now. I still have trouble believing it.

I have cherished this team since a young age, but became clinically obsessed beginning with the 2003 team. I used the Kansas City touchdown song for my floor routine on the Lee’s Summit West High School gymnastic team. I have terrorized sports bars in Delaware, Massachusetts, D.C., Michigan and Illinois with my fandom when I lived outside the Chiefs’ cable reach. I wrote my law school admissions essay on my love for the Chiefs.

So, know this is coming from the perspective of someone who loves this team more than is reasonable for any person to love an entity: Now is the time to change our team name to the Kansas City Kings.

Why now?

I won’t address why we should make the change. Many others have written more comprehensively and eloquently on this than I could. But I will explain why we should do it now.

We’ve got the cachet. I love the idea of doing it while we’re on top. We are the model for the NFL. We are the Kings.

Our team is full of vibrant, lovable people. Just picture Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones, Travis Kelce, Tommy Townsend, JuJu Smith-Schuster and the others getting amped up and telling their fans: We are the Kings! Get Paul Rudd to do a hype video announcing it. While our players are taking victory laps on talk shows, podcasts and visits to the White House, they can simultaneously do a press tour for the new name. The timing could not be better to sell something like this.

While our fan base — the Chiefs Kingdom — is riding high, let’s capitalize. Let’s get some new merch and, heck, dunk on some people who were crowning the Chargers as AFC West Champions, the Bills as AFC Champions and the Eagles as Super Bowl Champions over us. I’m not saying they have to announce it from the parade on Wednesday, or from the draft stage at Union Station in April (although that would be my pitch), but it should happen this offseason.

Time comes for us all. We’ll have to do it eventually, so why not now? In the past few years, the Washington football and Cleveland baseball teams made their moves away from Native imagery. (I hope the Atlanta Braves come next. I mean, Joe Posnanski has already solved that: The Atlanta Hammers is just too perfect.)

The large stage Kansas City is enjoying now because of the incredible talent of our team shines the spotlight even brighter on the antiquated aspects of our name and some of our traditions. It’s better to do it now, proactively, instead of letting this turn into a Dan Snyder-esque situation and hold on far past the point of propriety. We are the class of the league — we should act like it. Take accountability for the harmful imagery we have employed and move on.

Why the Kings?

Who could be called the Kings over us? It feels natural not only because there have been Kansas City Kings before, and our fans are already called the Kingdom, but also because the Chiefs are clearly the kings of the NFL.

Three Super Bowls in four years, two wins. We have the best player in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes, the league and Super Bowl MVP. We are really the royalty of the AFC and the NFL, and should be for the better part of the next decade. We are hosting a victory parade Wednesday and the NFL Draft in April. The NFL runs through Kansas City, plain and simple.

The name Kings is the best of both worlds: It allows us to honor old traditions of Kansas City fandom, but slightly retool them. (Hey, the retooling this past offseason worked out all right, didn’t it?)

It keeps the monarchy theme with the Royals and Monarchs. It reclaims the name from the NBA team that left us. (#notbitter) And the name Kings would also allow us to keep cherished KC football emblems like the red and gold, KC Wolf and our cheers.

On the flip side, it would give us an opportunity to remove some antiquated aspects of our team: We can rename Arrowhead as “Hunt Stadium” to honor our late, great founder Lamar Hunt. (How is it not named that already?) Fans should stream in from the delicious barbecue-scented parking lot into the stands with crowns and capes instead of war paint and headdresses, scepters instead of tomahawks. And, for goodness’ sake: Stop. The. Chop.

I haven’t solved all the problems. I don’t know what we put in place of the Arrowhead chop or the ceremonials drumming. But I know there are marketing specialists who can figure that out, and our fan base will adapt.

Ultimately, there’s no reason not to claim a new, improved name. We can do it easily and we can do it well. It’s all gain, no loss. Changing the name won’t change how magical our team is. It won’t erase the storied past we have or alter the bright future we expect. It won’t stop how much we love our team, how our breath catches when Mahomes breaks out of the pocket, how our hearts jump when Kelce makes a clutch catch and barrels past two defenders for extra yardage, or stifle the fierceness of our cheers when Jones takes down the opposing quarterback.

In fact, a new name fits this new era: the time of Patrick Mahomes, Brett Veach and Andy Reid. They’ve built on what our team has always had and built something better than we could even imagine. We’re still not used to it, but boy, do we love it. The Kings will fit right in.

We’re called Crown Town for a reason, right?

Kelly Ehrenreich is an attorney who lives in Chicago, but was born and raised in Kansas City. She’s a proud Lee’s Summit West High School graduate, a former writer for The Star’s Teen Star, and lifelong Royals and Chiefs fanatic.