The Kansas City Chiefs have won 10 of their 12 games by one score, and five of them have been by three points or less.
“It’s unique,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said. “We’ve had a lot of close games.”
Indeed each seems crazier and closer than the last. Their last two victories came on a field goal that hit a crossbar to defeat the Los Angeles Chargers and a fumbled snap in field-goal range by the Las Vegas Raiders.
That has led to consternation that the Chiefs get all the right bounces — and even some conspiracies that the officials are manipulating things for Kansas City.
But perhaps it’s better to compare it to what wrong last year. Even though the Chiefs won the Super Bowl — a game in which they lost the overtime coin flip — they had their share of bad luck.
Four of their six losses in 2023 were fluky.
In Week One Patrick Mahomes was undone by several dropped passes, including one by Kadarius Toney that led to a pick-six by Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch. Toney was called for a dubious offside penalty in Week 14 that negated Travis Kelce’s potentially game-winning lateral to Toney for a 24-yard touchdown with 1:25 left to play.
The previous week the Chiefs trailed by eight to the Green Bay Packers with less than a minute to play in the Sunday night contest, and the referees didn’t call what looked to be an egregious pass interference committed by Carrington Valentine on Marquez Valdes-Scantling. That would’ve placed the ball inside the Packers’ 10-yard line.
“The first 59 minutes were really well officiated. We lost something at the end,” NBC Sports rule analyst Terry McAulay said during the broadcast, according to the New York Post. “This is an obvious defensive pass interference. You simply can’t play through the receiver’s back before the ball gets there. He does exactly that. He plays right through his back, has to be a foul, should have been called.”
Valdes-Scantling also was involved in a bad bounce in Week 11. In that Super Bowl rematch against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Chiefs trailed by four with 1:42 left when the wide-open wide receiver dropped a touchdown pass.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling of the Kansas City Chiefs drops a pass late in the fourth quarter against ... [+] the Philadelphia Eagles on Nov. 20, 2023. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)Getty Images
Sure, you can blame that on Valdes-Scantling’s hands. And the other crazy plays, penalties or lack thereof might not be quite as fluky as what the Chiefs are going through this year.
But the razor-thin margins that went against the Chiefs in 2023 are going for them this year. Perhaps the football gods are just evening things out.
That 2024 campaign started out with Baltimore Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely being out of bounds by just a toe on a game-ending, end-zone grab in Week One. The next week featured a contentious pass interference penalty by the Cincinnati Bengals to put the Chiefs in field-goal range.
“You don’t want it to come down to that,” Reid said. “You’re trying to score as many points as you obviously can, but … that’s how things go.”
The Chiefs ended the following week with two near goal-line stands against the Atlanta Falcons. In Week Nine the Chiefs won the overtime coin flip and scored a touchdown to defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the next week, they blocked a last-second, 35-yard field-goal attempt by the Denver Broncos.
The latest victory — a 19-17 win against the Chargers to capture their ninth straight division title — featured the opposing luck on a short field goal, which went in despite doinking off the upright.
“I wanted it to go right down the middle obviously,” kicker Matthew Wright said. “I’m just happy it went in.”
Wright is the Chiefs’ third starting kicker this year. It shows the team’s resilience after Harrison Butker, the NFL’s highest-paid kicker in terms of contract average ($6.4 million), total value ($25.6 million) and guaranteed money ($17.75 million) was placed on injured reserve with a knee injury.
The team similarly keeps winning despite losing starting running back Isiah Pacheco, starting wide receivers Marquise Brown and Rashee Rice and starting cornerback Jaylen Watson for much of the season.
That’s why when asked about his team’s luck at the end of games, Reid credits his players’ ability to win those close games to their mental toughness.
“We’ve been able to battle through some things to get these victories,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll continue to do that.”