The Kansas City Chiefs have been less-than-dominant during this year’s Super Bowl run. If they win, where would they rank among the worst Super Bowl champions since 1991? We dig into our historical data to find out.
Sometimes the data reveals one thing while greatness shows you something else.
Yes, the Kansas City Chiefs are on the cusp of history, sitting just one win shy of becoming the first three-peat Super Bowl champion in NFL history.
But there’s been something different about this version of the Chiefs. They’ve relied more on their defense and run game, and less on Patrick Mahomes.
During the regular season, Kansas City ranked third in defensive EVE (our efficiency versus expected model) against the run and 11th in defensive EVE overall, and the team’s 26.5 rushing attempts per game were its most since 2015. At the same time, Mahomes finished the regular season with a career-low 3,928 yards.
Despite winning a franchise-record 15 games, the Chiefs seemed to be less dominant than in previous years. Thirteen of their 16 games (not including a 38-0 loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 18 when the starters sat) were decided by 10 points or fewer. That’s tied for the most such games in a single season in franchise history with the 1988 team that finished 4-11-1.
Kansas City’s point differential of plus-59 during the regular season was the team’s worst since 2012. Even taking out the Week 18 loss, it would still be the second-lowest differential of the Mahomes era (since 2018).
Now there’s a lot of negative there for team that was 15-1 heading into that Broncos game and has knocked off the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills (again) in two more close playoff games to claim yet another AFC championship.
However, we can’t hide from the data, either. If nothing else, it gives the Chiefs another challenge to push aside heading into its showdown with the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX Feb. 9 in New Orleans.
Not only did KC rank 19th in the NFL in overall EVE (Philadelphia was second), but it also sits just eighth in TRACR heading into Super Sunday (the Eagles are third). TRACR takes data on both sides of the ball to calculate how many points per 10 drives better or worse teams are than the average team during those specific seasons.
It’s important because it normalizes a team’s performance from various league factors during a respective era that can either inflate or deflate its numbers. The model is the same one we used to determine the 2007 New England Patriots are the best regular-season team, and the 1996 Green Bay Packers are the best Super Bowl champ of the past three-plus decades.
In case you’re wondering, Kansas City’s first championship season of this dynasty was its greatest with a 12.30 TRACR in 2019. Mahomes finished with 4,030 passing yards and a career-low five interceptions in 14 games and Travis Kelce had 97 receptions for 1,229 yards as the Chiefs won their last nine games after a 6-4 start. Mahomes won the first of his three Super Bowl MVPs as KC rallied past San Francisco 31-20 in Miami.
As for the 2024 Chiefs, their 4.28 TRACR is the seventh lowest for a Super Bowl team since the 1991 season. And while the 2018 team posted the third-best offensive TRACR over this stretch at 13.80, this year’s team placed ninth in the league at just 4.23.
If they were to win their third straight title, the Chiefs would likely become the third-worst Super Bowl champion over this span. Sure, Kansas City’s TRACR would rise with a victory, but probably not enough to catch the 2006 Indianapolis Colts’ 5.66 mark.
Super Bowl Champions With the Lowest TRACR
With the Eagles riding a 10.68 TRACR and the Chiefs at that 4.28 mark, it’s no surprise our projection model gives Philly the advantage with a 50.8% probability (as of Thursday) of spoiling KC’s bid to lift the Lombardi Trophy for a third straight year.
Philadelphia will enter the game with the 23rd-highest TRACR among Super Bowl teams since 1991 and the 32nd best among all teams over that stretch – just behind the 1995 Dallas Cowboys (10.89), who beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-17 in Super Bowl XXX.
So even though the Eagles carry a strong rating, the Chiefs bring the teams’ combined TRACR to just 14.96 – making it the eighth-worst Super Bowl matchup of the past 34 years. And with a differential of 6.40 between the teams, it also ranks 10th when it comes to the most one-sided matchups over this span.
The team with the highest mark has won six of the nine matchups ranked ahead of this one in terms of the largest TRACR differential, though two of the top three lost, including the biggest one-sided affair at the end of the 2007 season.
That year, the Patriots entered Super Bowl XLII with an 18-0 record and the highest TRACR of any conference champion over the past 34 years at 21.70. But the New York Giants (3.10) found a way to hold down Tom Brady and New England’s historically good offense, and Eli Manning found Plaxico Burress for the go-ahead score with 35 seconds left. The 17-14 win was the third-biggest upset in Super Bowl history in terms of point spread with the Patriots favored by 12.5.
None of that is likely to matter to Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Co.
Kansas City, a 1.5-point favorite in terms of point spread this year, was also an underdog by our model the past two years. In 2022, the Chiefs held an 8.55 TRACR while the Eagles headed in at 11.02 and they had a 5.93 mark last year while the San Francisco 49ers were at 10.38. Ultimately, it didn’t matter as the Chiefs held off the Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII and came from behind to beat the 49ers 25-22 in Super Bowl LVIII.
The historical data certainly doesn’t guarantee this will be a one-sided dud of a Super Bowl, especially with this Chiefs team involved. Kansas City’s eight comeback wins after trailing at any point in the second half are tied for the second most in a single season (including the playoffs) all time behind only the Minnesota Vikings’ nine in 2022.
The data says the Chiefs might be one of the worst Super Bowl teams of the past three-plus decades, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find a way to win.
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