These Are the Good Old Days

Imagine an NFL franchise that wins two games and loses 14 in a season. Then repeats that sorry performance four seasons later. Who would we be talking about? The Cleveland Browns? Detroit Lions? Tampa Bay?

Nope. That would be none other than your Kansas City Chiefs. They sandwiched those lamentable two seasons of 2008 and 2012 around just 21 regular-season victories strewn across the intervening three seasons.

For fans who jumped on the red and gold bandwagon after Andy Reid showed up and went 9-0 to start his first season as head coach—and those who clambered aboard in the Patrick Mahomes’ era—it’s hard to overstate, but it’s true: This is indeed the golden age of Kansas City pro football. 

Since Reid came riding to the rescue, the Chiefs have recorded the best combined record in the NFL, and it’s not even close: At 143-58, they’re 15 victories ahead of No. 2 on the list, the New England Patriots. That gives Reid a 71.14 winning percentage in Kansas City.

To see why the current run may be as good as it gets, put his record into the context of the Chiefs’ all-time performance. Even with Reid’s accomplishments, the franchise isn’t far above the break-even mark in winning percentage: 54.78 percent over the course of 983 NFL games.

Exclude the 10 seasons of elevated performance under Marty Schottenheimer from 1989-1998, when a 104-65 record yielded wins 61.54 percent of the time, and the overall mark from the 40 other seasons falls to just 47.42 percent—pretty close to the very definition of mediocrity. And that includes Hank Stram’s 1960-1974 stretch that produced the team’s first two Super Bowl appearances before the wheels fell off.

As a long, slow decline set in following the 1971 AFC title game loss to the Miami Dolphins, Chiefs fans went into a Super Bowl funk that would eventually hit 50 years. Along the way, the team compiled a record of playoff frustration that many still can’t shake: Lin Elliott, the blown lead of 28 points (both games against the Colts), roadblocks thrown up by New England and Buffalo. Heck, even Joe Montana couldn’t get the Chiefs back to the title game.

Kansas City has now appeared in four of the past five Super Bowls and is poised in the 2024 season to make it four straight—only the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings have ever done that, and without a single victory between them. Should the Chiefs win, they’d be the first team in the history of the post AFL-NFL merger to claim three consecutive Lombardi Trophies.

On the surface, the key pieces for another successful run are locked in place. Mahomes will continue to be the foundation upon which the offense is built, and with the ink now dried on his $157.75 million contract, Chris Jones is, in theory, locked up for the next five seasons, likely carrying him to the end of his playing days. Andy Reid, who turned 66 in March, says he’s not going anywhere just yet. The coaching staff was largely spared the poaching one tends to see after a Super Bowl championship.

The Chiefs have already made some off-season moves, but will have to fill significant gaps on defense. While tackles Mike Pennel, Derrick Nnadi and Tershawn Wharton will return along with linebacker Drew Tranquill, corner L’Jarious Sneed is taking his coverage skills to Tennessee, linebacker Willie Gay is now a New Orleans Saint, and safety Mike Edwards has signed with perennial playoff foe Buffalo. 

On the offensive side, backup offensive lineman Nick Allegretti is now a Washington Commander, but Mahomes will have some new horses in the stable with the additions of wideout Hollywood Brown and tight end Irv Smith. Still to be determined is the fate of wideout Mecole Hardman, who teamed up with Mahomes for the walk-off touchdown in Super Bowl LVIII. 

The special teams will welcome back Harrison Butker following a career-best season, but bid adieu to punter Tommy Townsend (Houston) after signing Matt Araiza.

Despite a late-season lull before the playoffs began (Kansas City was just 5-5 during the meat of its schedule), the team refocused and charged through four playoff games that, combined, were statistically more challenging than any team had ever faced in the post-season. And we saw how that worked out.

That dismal stretch at the end of the regular season was marked by offensive inconsistencies, and the Chiefs were able to survive, then advance, largely on the back of Jones and his fellow defenders. The defense recorded its best team stats in Reid’s tenure here, giving Mahomes some breathing room while trying to work new wideouts into the rotation and absolutely justifying the coaching move that installed Steve Spagnuolo as defensive coordinator after the 2018 season ended with a sudden-death overtime New England touchdown in the AFC championship game.

That came in Mahomes’ first full season. Since then, the final games have ended thusly: Super Bowl victory, Super Bowl loss, AFC title game loss, Super Bowl victory, Super Bowl victory.

So the question—have the Chiefs built a dynasty?—has been answered in the affirmative. The next question, then, is this: Can they keep it?