Your fake Rodney Dangerfield moment for today

Well, well, well. I wondered when this little critter was going to show up.

Hey, look, folks! It's the We Don't Get No Respect card!

Because, you know, come Sunday afternoon in the arctic wastes of Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs are going to destroy the New England Patriots. The final score will be, like, eleventy-hundred to zero. Patrick Mahomes will throw 10 touchdown passes. Chris "The Human Eraser" Jones will swat a dozen Tom Brady passes into oblivion. The rest of the Chiefs defense will turn Gronk 'n' them into so many Tide pods.

Or, you know, so everyone allegedly thinks, according to the Patriots.

Here's a quote this week from Tom Brady, to Tracy Wolfson of CBS: “It’ll be a good game, they’re a good team. We played them earlier this year and I know everyone thinks we suck and  ..."

OK. You can stop right there.

"Everyone thinks we suck"?

OK, Tommy. Whatever you say, fella.

Look. I know the We Don't Get No Respect card -- variously known as the Nobody Believes In Us card, the No One Gives Us A Chance card and the Everyone's Overlooking Us card -- is a staple when it comes to locker room motivation. That it's also a frequently laughable staple is an equal staple.

Especially in this case.

I mean ... the Patriots, of all people, trying to convince themselves they're some forlorn, forgotten underdog?

Please. Puh-leeze.

Forget the fact that the Patriots, of all people, should be able to come up with a more imaginative motivational stratagem than this tired old play. They're supposed to be the smart ones, right? The franchise that's got it all figured out?

So this is all they can come up with?

This is not just laughable, it's completely ludicrous. Really? No one gives the franchise that's been to eight straight conference championship games a chance? Everyone thinks they suck?

Sorry, but no one thinks they suck. No one is overlooking them. Everyone, rather, expects the game in Arrowhead to go right to the wire -- and in fact may actually favor the Patriots given what the weather is supposed to be.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good persecution complex?