KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Call the Kansas City Chiefs lucky, claim Patrick Mahomes and company are overrated, suggest Andy Reid’s squad is winning ugly.
They’re the first team to qualify for the 2024 NFL postseason — and it's not even December yet.
Miami's loss on Thanksgiving coupled with Kansas City's 19-17 win Fridayagainst the Las Vegas Raiders assure Reid's squad a shot at an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat.
It marks the 10th straight year the Chiefs have made the playoffs — the second-longest streak in NFL history behind only the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick New England teams, who made the playoffs 11 consecutive seasons from 2009 to 2019.
“When you clinch a playoff spot, that’s your first goal — to get into the playoffs and give yourself a chance to go for that Super Bowl,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “But we know we have a long ways to go. We’ve got to to continue to work get better.”
That’s become the theme for Kansas City, which endured a rather ragged month of November.
Despite Mahomes struggling with turnovers and the offense struggling with roster attrition, the Chiefs went 6-0 in September and October, looking every bit like the best team in the AFC.
Kansas City started November with an overtime win against Tampa Bay on Monday Night Football, but the offense scored a season-high 30 points in the win and there was no reason for major alarm bells.
But the rest of the month certainly did.
The Chiefs needed a blocked field goal as time expired to beat Denver, couldn’t stop Josh Allen in Buffalo in the season’s first — and, so far, only — loss, had to outlast Carolina on a last-second field goal last Sunday and needed a botched snap to ensure a 19-17 win Friday against the Las Vegas Raiders.
“It’s good to know that we made the playoffs and everything, but right now we’re just focusing on ourselves,” center Creed Humphrey said. “We’re focusing on making sure we can get better.”
It’s been a disjointed run for Kansas City, which isn’t used to prolonged periods of disjointed play.
“We just hold ourselves to such a high standard that we don’t feel like we’re playing our best football all together,” Mahomes said. “It seems like every game it’s — offense does good, defense does good — kind of vice versa. We’ve got to find a way to build up so we can play great as a full, entire team. It’s awesome that we’re finding ways to get wins. At the end of the day, that’s what you’re going for, but our goal is to get to that Super Bowl, so we’re going to try to continue to get better and better so that we’re playing our best football hopefully by the end of the year.”
Kansas City is tied with Detroit for the best record in the NFL (11-1) and controls its own fate in the race for a ninth straight AFC West crown, the top seed in the AFC and a first-round playoff bye.
“There’s a lot we can build from this as a team overall,” Jones said. “We’re just going to keep on winning. You can learn a lot from winning. It’s better to win than to have a pretty loss. We’ll take an ugly win, build from it and continue to get better.”
Humphrey insists the Chiefs are close to putting things together if they can eradicate the penalties, improve their discipline and lean into their fundamentals.
“We’re winning close games; that’s a good thing,” Humphrey said. “We’re finding ways to win; that’s a good thing. ... It feels so close. It’s just little things week in and week out.”
Still, being in the postseason is better than being on the outside of the playoff picture.
“It honestly feels weird because it's so early,” linebacker Nick Bolton said of clinching before December arrives. “It’s usually a little bit later in the season when we clinch a playoff berth since I've been here. But yeah, we're happy we're able to clinch a playoff berth, but there’s a long way to go to get to our end goal.”
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