America has an empathy problem. Nowhere is this more prevalent than politics, where people seem as divided — and as content to remain in their echo chambers — as ever before.

Naturally, this has bled into sports, and football, in particular. While fans crush high-paid players (i.e. Earl Thomas and Le’Veon Bell) for holding out in an attempt to maximize their salaries in a cutthroat sport, others crush those fans for ripping said players, with little understanding that a person making $45,000 a year might have a tough time sympathizing with a guy haggling over millions.

It’s a nasty, unfortunate cycle, and it should come as no surprise that people’s increasing inability to see another viewpoint in this country has also led to a complete lack of understanding about the sports suffering many fanbases have gone through.

I’m not talking about Cleveland Browns fans, here. Hell, everyone can sympathize with a fanbase that recently suffered an 0-16 season. But the truth is, there are many other suffering groups out there — Minnesota, Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit and Cincinnati, for starters — all of whom are often overlooked.

View photos Patrick Mahomes hasn’t lost as a starting quarterback in the NFL. (Getty Images) More

One franchise that has been secretly cursed is the Kansas City Chiefs. You might scoff at that notion because the Chiefs have actually won a Super Bowl (unlike any of the aforementioned teams), but arguably no fanbase has had its guts ripped out more over the past 25 years than the Chiefs.

Dead serious.

Decades of frustration losing to elite QBs

Prior to moving to Kansas City in 2006, I had little understanding of the scars that had been left on Chiefs fans. As a Lions fan, I’d put my wounds up against anyone’s, and Detroit hadn’t gone 0-16 by then — that would come two years later.

But over the past 12 years, I’ve gained a serious appreciation for everything Chiefs fans have been through. That Super Bowl victory? It came in January 1970. You know who wasn’t even born then? Patrick Mahomes’ father, Pat Mahomes, who was born in August of that year.

So yeah, whatever Super Bowl grace period the Chiefs got from their fans has long expired. Fans who, by the way, have stayed unbelievably loyal along the way. Despite being in one of the NFL’s smallest markets, the Chiefs are consistently among the league’s best in attendance. Their payoff for that has been null and void, as the list of playoff horrors inflicted upon the Chiefs by opposing franchise quarterbacks over the past 25 years is borderline sadistic, like a football version from the mind of Eli Roth.

The Chiefs were one of the winningest team of the 1990s, only to see their good fortune immediately run out — Wile E. Coyote-style — immediately upon entering the playoffs.

View photos Chiefs fans haven’t seen a playoff victory at home since the 1993 season. (Getty Images) More

From the 1994-2017 seasons, the Chiefs went 1-10 in the playoffs, losing in a whole manner of brutal ways. A missed last-second field goal in 1995. A 38-31 loss in 2004 to the Colts in which neither team punted. A blown 28-point second-half lead in 2014 against, yep, the Colts. And most recently, a squandered 18-point second-half lead last postseason to the Tennessee Titans.

Guess who some of the quarterbacks who beat them were? Dan Marino, John Elway, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Andrew Luck, Ben Roethlisberger and Marcus Mariota. All, save for Brady, were first-round quarterbacks.

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