KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With apologies to "Seinfeld," the Patrick Mahomes effect is real — and it's been spectacular.
The late Lamar Hunt moved the Dallas Texans to Kansas City ahead of the 1963 AFL season and Arrowhead Stadium opened in 1972, but Chiefs home playoff games used to be a rare occurrence.
That has changed in a major way since Mahomes’ arrival in Kansas City, but the facts behind the sea change in the Chiefs’ fortunes are even more dramatic than most people realize.
PRE-MAHOMES HISTORY
The Texans had won the 1962 AFL Championship — remember, this is before the AFL-NFL merger — but they would not reach the playoffs in Kansas City until 1966, their fourth season as the Chiefs.
Hank Stram’s squad lost Super Bowl I to the Packers that year, made the playoffs again in 1968 then capped the 1969 season by winning Super Bowl IV, the final game before the AFL-NFL merger became official.
Amazingly, throughout that run, Kansas City never hosted a home playoff game.
The Chiefs’ first home playoff game came on Dec. 25, 1971 — a 27-24 double-overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins in the AFC Divisional Round at since torn-down Municipal Stadium in what remains the longest game in NFL history and (I think!) the last football game to be played there.
The Chiefs made the playoffs only once (1986), a road Wild Card loss at the New York Jets, during the next 18 seasons.
The next home playoff game — and first ever at Arrowhead Stadium — wouldn’t come until Dec. 28, 1991, an inglorious 10-6 win against the then-Los Angeles Raiders in the Wild Card Round.
The Chiefs hosted one playoff game in their first 28 seasons in Kansas City and it took 20 seasons before Arrowhead hosted a game, but things got markedly better after Marty Schottenheimer’s arrival.
In addition to the Raiders win, Kansas City beat Pittsburgh in the 1993 Wild Card at home and hosted Divisional Round games in 1995 and 1997 — losses to Indianapolis and Denver, respectively.
Still, four home postseason games in a seven-season span was a significant improvement — and provided the only home playoff wins in the franchise’s first 55 years of existence.
The Chiefs lost a 2003 Divisional Round game to Indianapolis at home in 2003, the no-punt game under Dick Vermeil, and got crushed in a 2010 Divisional Round matchup against Baltimore under Todd Haley.
Andy Reid’s first two home postseason games produced memorable losses to Pittsburgh in the 2016 Divisional Round, despite not allowing a touchdown, and to Tennessee in the 2017 Wild Card Round — a game that featured a blown 18-point halftime lead, Marcus Mariota throwing a touchdown pass to himself and the inglorious end to Jeff Triplette’s officiating career,
To that point, the Chiefs had hosted nine postseason games in their first 55 seasons, going 2-7 and never hosting more than one playoff game in any season and never hosting an AFC Championship Game.
PRE-MAHOMES HOME PLAYOFF RESULTS
THE MAHOMES EFFECT
Everything changed with the 2018 season.
With Mahomes at QB, Kansas City has now won more home postseason games in the last six seasons than the franchise played in its first 55.
Since Mahomes took over as the starting quarterback in 2018, the Chiefs have hosted 12 games, going 10-2 during that span. That’s five times as many home playoff wins in Mahomes' first six seasons as the franchise had in the first 55 seasons.
Kansas City will host at least one playoff game this season and could host another if they beat the Houston Texans at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the AFC Divisional Round.
Prior to Mahomes’ arrival, the Chiefs had never hosted multiple playoff games in a single season nor had Arrowhead ever hosted an AFC Championship Game, both have happened five times now and could again this postseason.
The only season with Mahomes as the starter that it didn’t happen was last season.
All Kansas City did last season, after dispatching Miami at home in the Wild Card Round in the coldest game in club history and fourth-coldest in NFL history, was wins at Buffalo and Baltimore en route to the first Super Bowl repeat in 19 years.
It was the Chiefs’ third Super Bowl and fourth Super Bowl appearance in the last five seasons.
The worst two seasons of Mahomes’ career both ended with an overtime loss in the AFC Championship Game.
It’s astonishing — unfathomable, really, for the longest-suffering members of Chiefs Kingdom — but it’s also worth acknowledging and cherishing.
It won’t always be this way (Ask New England!), but it’s been a fun ride and it ain’t over.
HOME PLAYOFF RESULTS WITH MAHOMES
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