Kansas City chases history after 8-0 start to 2024 NFL season
Kansas City rarely makes it easy, but they almost always find a way.
Especially with Patrick Mahomes under center.
That continued Monday, and now, the Chiefs have joined some interesting company.
The most dominant National Football League team since the end of the Tom Brady era in New England, the Chiefs have won four AFC titles and three Super Bowls since the start of 2019, and are the current two-time defending champions. Kansas City has done something, though, in 2024 that it had not been able to do in the Mahomes era: start a season 8-0.
Kansas City became the 30th team in the Super Bowl era to start a season with eight wins, and the first since Philadelphia in 2022.
The Chiefs rallied to beat Tampa Bay 30-24 in overtime Monday night, and head into a very manageable rest of November with a two-game lead in the loss column on the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, two teams Kansas City will play over the next eight weeks.
ECKEL:With two NFL head coaches already fired, which ones are up next on the hot seat?
Injury scare nearly derails unbeaten start
One thing is for sure: the Chiefs are not going to threaten the 1972 Miami Dolphins, or even the 2007 New England Patriots, if two-time regular season MVP and three-time Super Bowl MVP Mahomes is not playing. He had an injury scare Monday night, as Kansas City rallied to beat Tampa Bay 30-24 in overtime.
“Definitely scary,” Mahomes said. “I think it hurt more just because it’s the same ankle I rolled last week, so it scared me a little bit. When you don’t know exactly what happens and you get that sharp pain, you always fear the worst.’
“I was obviously running for the goal line and was kind of committed to running the football and at the last second [passed to] Samaje, and so I kind of awkwardly rolled the ankle a little bit. You feel the pain, and that scares you. I’ve dealt with ankles before, but I just kind of laid there, and as time went on, the pain subsided.
“I just kind of got back to it and got back moving again and felt comfortable going out there. The one in the playoffs a couple of years ago was a little bit of how I got tackled. It got stuck, and it hurt a lot more. [This time] I could move, I could still have mobility in my ankle, and I still do after this game. I’ll probably get a little swelling tomorrow. But with a short week, you go in there and take care of it and be prepared to play next week.”
The Chiefs will probably rest Mahomes once (or if) they can lock up a playoff bye and home field, so they are probably not going to go undefeated the whole way. But that is not their goal: history is staring Kansas City in the face. No team has won three-straight Super Bowl titles, with Green Bay the winner of the NFL title in 1965 and the first two Super Bowl championships in 1966 and 1967: the Packers also won three NFL titles in a row from 1929-1931.
How many teams have started 8-0 since 1966?
Here’s a look at each team–prior to the Chiefs in 2024–to start 8-0 since the start of the Super Bowl era.
| STARTED | FINISHED | WON SUPER BOWL? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 Rams | 11-0 | 11-3 | No |
| 1972 Dolphins | 14-0 | 14-0 | Yes |
| 1973 Vikings | 9-0 | 12-2 | No (lost to Dolphins) |
| 1975 Vikings | 10-0 | 12-2 | No |
| 1977 Cowboys | 8-0 | 12-4 | Yes |
| 1984 Dolphins | 11-0 | 14-2 | No (lost to 49ers) |
| 1985 Bears | 12-0 | 15-1 | Yes |
| 1990 49ers | 10-0 | 14-2 | No |
| 1990 Giants | 10-0 | 13-3 | Yes |
| 1991 Washington | 11-0 | 14-2 | Yes |
| 1998 Broncos | 13-0 | 14-2 | Yes |
| 2003 Chiefs | 9-0 | 13-3 | No |
| 2005 Colts | 13-0 | 14-2 | No |
| 2006 Colts | 9-1 | 12-4 | Yes |
| 2007 Patriots | 16-0 | 16-0 | No (lost to Giants) |
| 2008 Titans | 10-0 | 13-3 | No |
| 2009 Colts | 14-0 | 14-2 | No (lost to Saints) |
| 2009 Saints | 13-0 | 13-3 | Yes |
| 2011 Packers | 13-0 | 15-1 | No |
| 2012 Falcons | 8-0 | 13-3 | No |
| 2013 Chiefs | 9-0 | 11-5 | No |
| 2015 Bengals | 8-0 | 12-4 | No |
| 2015 Patriots | 10-0 | 12-4 | No |
| 2015 Panthers | 14-0 | 15-1 | No (lost to Broncos) |
| 2018 Rams | 8-0 | 13-3 | No (lost to Patriots) |
| 2019 49ers | 8-0 | 13-3 | No (lost to Chiefs) |
| 2019 Patriots | 8-0 | 12-4 | No |
| 2020 Steelers | 11-0 | 12-4 | No |
| 2022 Eagles | 8-0 | 14-3 | No (lost to Patriots) |
Can the Chiefs translate wins into a Super Bowl title?
While the first 18 teams on this list had varying degrees of success over the rest of their campaigns, going 9-9, the last 11 teams to start with eight-straight wins have NOT won a Super Bowl title.
Add in the pressure of trying to become the only team in NFL history to win three Super Bowl titles on the bounce–akin to the 2016-2018 Real Madrid team that won three-straight UEFA Champions League crowns–and history could start to weigh very heavily on Kansas City.
Will the Chiefs finish the job?
