After concluding their final season as members of the AFL in 1969 with a 23-7 triumph over the Minnesota Vikings to win Super Bowl IV, the Kansas City Chiefs struggled to achieve similar success in the NFL for decades. They reached the AFC Championship Game just once in the first 48 years following the merger, but the emergence of Patrick Mahomes in 2018 drastically changed the team’s fortunes.
In Mahomes’ first season as its starting quarterback, Kansas City held a late lead against the New England Patriots in the conference title game but squandered it and lost 37-31 in overtime. The club has played in the AFC Championship Game every year since, winning four of its last five appearances and going to capture the Vince Lombardi Trophy three times.
The Chiefs edged the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime last February to become the ninth team to win back-to-back Super Bowls. They now are looking to accomplish a feat last achieved by the Green Bay Packers from 1929-31: win three consecutive NFL titles.
Before they are able to reach that level of dominance, another rare feat is in their sights. Kansas City enters its Week 11 matchup against the Buffalo Bills with a 9-0 record and are aiming to join the 1972 Miami Dolphins (14-0) and 2007 New England Patriots (16-0) as the only teams in the Super Bowl era to go undefeated during the regular season.
Miami went on to win its three playoff games in 1972, but after winning its first two postseason contests, New England suffered a 17-14 loss to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, preventing it from achieving total perfection. The Chicago Bears went 13-0 in 1934 and 11-0 in 1942 but lost in the NFL Championship Game both years.
The Chiefs are the 34th team in league history and 22nd since the merger to win its first nine games. This is the third time the franchise has begun a season with a 9-0, as it also did so in both 2003 and 2013 – the latter being Andy Reid’s first campaign as its head coach.
Those two streaks both ended on the road, with Kansas City losing at Cincinnati in 2003 and Denver in 2013. That does not bode well for its chances of improving to 10-0 when it visits Buffalo on Sunday.
Since Week 17 of the 2023 season and including the playoffs, the Chiefs have posted a franchise-record 15 consecutive victories. While that is an amazing accomplishment, 12 of those wins were by eight points or fewer – including seven of their nine triumphs this campaign.
Kansas City has a plus-58 point differential in 2024, which is the worst mark for a 9-0 team in NFL history. According to the SportsLine Projection Model, it is the equivalent for a team with three losses at this point.
This is one of the reasons the model, which simulates every NFL game 10,000 times and is up well over $7,000 for $100 players on top-rated NFL picks since its inception, currently gives the Chiefs a 2% chance to go undefeated this season. That percentage increases with every additional victory Kansas City records, as a win in Buffalo raises it to 5.4%.
Should the Chiefs then defeat their following four opponents (Carolina Panthers, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, Cleveland Browns), the model’s simulations say they’ll go undefeated 19.9% of the time. A triumph over the Houston Texans in Week 16 has the outlook for a perfect regular season at 28.8%, and if the club pulls out a road victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers the following week, it will enter the finale at Denver with a 60% chance to finish with a 17-0 record.
More importantly for Kansas City is earning the No. 1 seed in the conference. Sure, the club proved it was able to win on the road in the playoffs last year by recording victories in Buffalo and Baltimore, but being able to host postseason games is what teams strive to do.
Sunday’s showdown between the Chiefs and Bills will go a long way toward determining who will have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Buffalo enters with an 8-2 record and would pull within one-half game of the Chiefs in the AFC standings with a win.
The model says Kansas City currently has a 65.4% chance of being the top seed in the conference, and it would increase to 91.6% with a triumph over the Bills. A loss would put the Chiefs’ prospects at 52.5%, but Buffalo’s only would improve from 25.2% currently to 37.1% with a victory on Sunday.
A loss by the Bills would see their chances plummet to 2.1%. Including their meeting in the divisional round last postseason, the Chiefs have won their last four trips to Buffalo, which also gives them confidence as they look to become the 19th team to get off to a 10-0 start in the Super Bowl era.
The model is calling for a close contest between the Chiefs and Bills on Sunday. And it is one of the five games with A-grade picks based on model simulations for the 11th week of the season. You can find those top-tier Week 11 NFL picks at SportsLine.
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Author: Scott Erskine
November 14, 2024 | 5:20 pm
