The Rich Eisen Show Top 5: Bobby Bones’ Biggest NFL Villains (Brace Yourselves, Chiefs Fans!!)

Before the list, a definition, because Bobby Bones spent most of the segment defending people he actually likes.

"I don't think it's bad to be a heel," he said. Roddy Piper was a heel. Heels are necessary.

With that established, here are his five biggest villains in the NFL heading into the season.

**5. Nick Sirianni.** Nothing recent required. Bones simply believes Sirianni loves the job.

"He is the Ric Flair of the NFL," Bones said. Embraces it, loves it, is exactly who he is. That earns admiration rather than dislike, which is the whole thesis of the list.

The mention did produce a small incident, because Sirianni visited the show at the combine alongside Big Dom, whom Chris now describes as his new best friend. TJ, a Cowboys fan, was aggravated watching that friendship form in real time.

**4. Jerry Jones.** If Sirianni is the heel of the last five years, Jones is the permanent one.

Bones likes him, and disclosed the reason immediately: Jones took him up in his helicopter and showed him around. The public case against Jones is the familiar one, that Dallas spends big and looks flashy and does not win.

Even here Bones hedged toward optimism, saying he is not a Cowboys fan but thinks this could be the year.

**3. Travis Kelce.** This one required an explanation, and it is not about character.

"He's too famous," Bones said.

His breakdown is arithmetic: Chiefs fatigue plus celebrity fatigue plus commercials plus Taylor Swift. Overexposure makes a villain. Bones thinks Kelce would be genuinely fun to be around, and that to anyone who is not a Chiefs fan or a Swift fan, none of that registers.

The desk pushed back on the timeline, noting Kelce hosted Saturday Night Live and a game show and had his own reality series before any of the current fame arrived. Bones held the line anyway, because the perception now is a man who no longer needs the NFL.

**2. Patrick Mahomes.** Bones said he loves Mahomes twice before explaining, which tells you how the reasoning goes.

This is the too-good-for-too-long villain. Mahomes himself is not villainous, he is likable, and people are simply tired of Kansas City winning. The room reached for the Dark Knight line about living long enough to see yourself become the villain, and landed on the obvious precedent, which is what happened to Brady.

One wrinkle kept Mahomes out of the top spot. Bones thinks getting hurt last year helped the brand, because it made him something like an underdog again.

If they win another championship, he warned, it will be unlike anything anyone has seen.

**1. Aaron Rodgers.** The all-timer of the past decade, and Bones was clear it is no longer about how good he is.

It is polarization. Rodgers is outspoken about everything, and Bones believes people will tune in specifically hoping he fails, which he called genuinely rare. Not liking someone you watch is common. Actively wanting the collapse is not.

Bones does not want that. His alternative is more interesting than the take itself.

"I root for someone who is 42," he said. He prefers the old version of a player to the jerk version, and the reason is that everyone at the desk has now watched the athletes get younger than they are.

That opened the segment's best tangent, which was about how sports gave a generation a strange relationship with age. A quarterback turned 30 and you heard it was over for him, and only later do you realize 30 is not remotely the prime of anyone's life.

The honorable mentions came fast once Bones admitted he had many more.

Baker Mayfield qualifies, and has for a while, going back to planting the flag at Ohio State. Abdul Carter and Jackson Dart were both summer villains, for no real reason, in what the desk classified as acute villainy that fades on its own.

Jalen Hurts nearly made it, and Bones was pained about it, because Hurts is not unlikable and Bones loves him. The villainy is situational, aimed at him by people in Philadelphia who want a change. It is not the person, it is the job.

The counterargument arrived instantly from the desk, dripping: I would definitely hate a quarterback who took me to two Super Bowls.

George Pickens made the almost list, on the grounds that he is emotional and outspoken, played a strong four-fifths of a contract season before getting franchised, and now plays for the Cowboys, which brings its own weather.

The general rule Bones landed on covers most of it. Anyone outspoken becomes a villain to somebody, because the people who dislike what you are saying dislike you.

Two names got explicitly ruled out. Shedeur Sanders is polarizing, but the desk agreed that is not of his own making, and he is in Cleveland now simply trying to make it. Lamar Jackson got a similar pass, with the added detail that his mother is his agent, which is hard to root against.