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The Kansas City Chiefs keep winning games no team should win so frequently, leaving opposing fans pointing to everything from dumb luck to favorable officiating to explain the maddening inevitability.
Mathematically, the Chiefs’ 15-game winning streak in games decided by one score or less should happen once in 406 chances.
The Chiefs have an 18-1 record since Week 17 of 2023, counting their four-game run to a second successive Super Bowl victory. That period includes the 15-game victory streak in games decided by eight or fewer points.
To calculate how likely a team would be to win 15 consecutive games of any kind, we take the team’s expected win rate in those games to the power of the streak duration. Counting playoffs, the Chiefs had a 42-21 (.667) record in one-score games from 2018-23 with Patrick Mahomes as their starting quarterback.
The table below shows the likelihood of a team winning between one and 15 games consecutively with projected win rates of 67 percent (Mahomes’ win rate in one-score games from 2018 to 2023) and 78 percent (his win rate in 2023-24).
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The Chiefs are one of seven teams since 1970 with 10-plus wins through 13 games despite having point differentials between plus-51 and plus-61, per Pro Football Reference.
Six of the seven had Hall of Fame-caliber quarterbacks and/or head coaches: Tom Brady and Bill Belichick with the 2003 New England Patriots; Aaron Rodgers with the 2021 Packers; a broken-down Peyton Manning (backed by an elite defense) with the 2015 Denver Broncos; Tom Landry with the 1981 Dallas Cowboys; Andy Reid with the 2003 Eagles; and, of course, Mahomes with Reid on these Chiefs.
Kansas City also has a consensus top-five defensive coordinator in Steve Spagnuolo.
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The Chiefs, despite having recent turnover at kicker, have made all 18 field-goal tries in the fourth quarter of one-score games over the past two seasons. Their average kick distance in these situations is the sixth-shortest in the league (35.2 yards), probably because Mahomes and the offense do such a good job getting into position.
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We might also revisit that list of teams that were 10-3 or better through 13 games, but with point differentials similar to Kansas City’s this season.
Those 2003 Patriots and 2015 Broncos won the Super Bowl. The 1978 Rams and 1981 Cowboys reached the NFC title game. The 2021 Packers lost in the divisional round. The 2013 Eagles lost in the wild-card round.
The Chiefs’ ability to win so many close games is a leading reason Kansas City has a league-best 78 percent chance to secure a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage in the playoffs.
That means Kansas City probably needs to win only two playoff games to reach another Super Bowl.
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