Chiefs have been 9-0 before, but this time could be different for KC. Here’s why

For the third time in franchise history the Chiefs are 9-0.

But not all fast starts are built alike, and the previous occasions did not predict playoff success.

Still, who wouldn’t want to have the NFL’s best record? The Chiefs are two games clear in the loss column of every other AFC team entering Week 11.

That includes Sunday opponent, the Buffalo Bills, who at 8-2 are currently positioned as the second seed in the AFC playoffs. The Pittsburgh Steelers (7-2) are third.

The rewards for finishing first start with a first-round bye in the playoffs. That happened the first time the Chiefs started 9-0.

In 2003, the Dick Vermeil-led Chiefs wound up 13-3, got the No. 2 seed — which, in the years of a six-team playoff bracket, earned them a bye — and promptly fell in the Divisional Round to the Indianapolis Colts.

In 2013, coach Andy Reid’s first year in Kansas City, a 9-0 start became an 11-5 finish and another playoff loss to the Colts, this time in the Wild Card Round.

Will this 9-0 start be different?

This team has a few things neither of those did, starting with superstar Patrick Mahomes at quarterback and the clout of three Super Bowl rings over the past five years.

Previous 9-0 Chiefs teams were chasing greatness. This one, bidding for a third straight Vince Lombardi Trophy, is chasing immortality.

“You’re 9-0 and won multiple Super Bowls, the expectations are a lot different,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said.

When he was hired in 2013, Reid brought Veach to Kansas City from the Philadelphia Eagles as a pro and college personnel analyst. The Chiefs had finished 2-14 the previous year and posted losing records in five of their previous six seasons.

“That first year we hit the ground running,” Veach said. “It was probably more enjoyable in ‘13. It was like, ‘Oh, hey, we’re 9-0! This could be a playoff team.’”

And now?

So successful are the Chiefs, and visions of a third consecutive Super Bowl so real, that it’s easy to consider the potential derailing factors.

What to do at left tackle if Wayne Morris is injured again, as he was last weekend against the Denver Broncos? (Rookie Kingsley Suamataia floundered as the replacement.) And why isn’t the offense performing at peak efficiency? Why does the defense surrender fourth-quarter drives?

Such are the realities of a bar set the highest level.

That wasn’t the case in 2013. Those Chiefs took advantage of the coaching change, solid returning talent in players like Eric Berry, Derrick Johnson, Tamba Hali, Justin Houston and Jamaal Charles, added quarterback Alex Smith and played the schedule of a team that finished last the previous year.

Those Chiefs produced the greatest one-season turnaround in team history, from two to 11 victories. But the satisfying first year of the Reid regime concluded with the playoff collapse — blowing a 28-point second-half lead.

The 2003 Chiefs were better positioned for success ... on one side of the ball. The offense of Trent Green, Priest Holmes, Tony Gonzalez and Hall of Fame offensive linemen Will Shieds and Willie Roaf led the NFL in scoring. But the defense ranked 29th in yards allowed.

Holmes set an NFL record, since broken, with 27 touchdowns that season.

“But it was half a team,” said Adam Teicher, who has covered the Chiefs for more than three decades, writing for ESPN and, before that, The Star.

That team ran into a more complete team in the playoffs, falling to Peyton Manning’s Colts 38-31 in the “no punt” game.

“We just couldn’t get enough guys on defense,” Vermeil told The Star’s Vahe Gregorian in 2013.

Getting past Win No. 9

The perfection of the Chiefs’ previous 9-0 starts ended there. In 2003 the Chiefs lost at Cincinnati, then ran their record to 11-1 before splitting the final four games.

The 2013 Chiefs hit a wall, falling at Denver to start a three-game losing streak.

The 2024 Chiefs likely are the best of the franchise’s three perfect-start teams, but there’s no doubt they’ve pulled the most escape acts, too. Four of this team’s victories, including last week’s over the Broncos (on Leo Chenal’s blocked field goal), have occurred on the game’s final snap.

The Chiefs are the only team in NFL history to begin a season 9-0 despite having trailed in eight of those games. In two games they’ve overcome double-digit deficits.

And there’s this: Five of their victories have come against teams that are .500 or better, and four of those teams would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.

But even with solid credentials, the Chiefs proceed with caution, starting with Sunday’s game. Buffalo has won its previous three regular-season games against the Chiefs, all in Kansas City.

The Chiefs, meanwhile, have won the past three KC-Buffalo playoff games, all since 2020.

“I don’t think anybody in the building thinks we’re this unbeatable force,” Veach said. “There are a lot of good football teams out there and we’re going to see one this week.”