2021 was supposed to be the year many players inside the Kansas City Chiefs locker room would eventually dub as the “Revenge Tour” over the off-season following an abysmal performance in Super Bowl 55 that resulted in Tom Brady hoisting his seventh Lombardi Trophy in 2020. Afterwhich, the Chiefs had their sights set on another historic season.
But to get to a third-straight trip to the big game, the expectation was to run right through the league to get there. Instead, the first half of the Chiefs’ 2021 campaign was less about avenging a 31-9 defeat to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and more about finding the swagger that got them to two-consecutive Super Bowls in the first place. But as the team rolls into December fresh off the bye, Kansas City not only appears to be finding their stride but reaching Super Bowl 56 is a goal that is no longer entirely out of the question.
Over the first nine weeks of the season, there wasn’t a single aspect of how Kansas City played that mirrored what a Super Bowl contender should look like.
Despite being 5-4 on the season, following two ugly wins over the New York Giants and an Aaron Rodgers-less Green Bay Packers squad, describing how bad the Chiefs’ 2021 was panning out could be summed up in many ways; it just depended on how cynical someone felt like being, but: abysmal, awful, terrible, frustrating, and just straight-up disappointing were all appropriate adjectives.
It was pretty appalling to watch, esspecially after the team had finished 14-2 the year before.
Nothing was going right: The defense ranked at the bottom of the league, Chris Jones playing on the outside of the d-line wasn’t working, Daniel Sorensen was public enemy number one, Patrick Mahomes was making erred throws and bad reads, the o-line struggled to gel, and almost every pass that bounced off a receiver’s hands resulted in a turnover.
Nine weeks into the season, many had written Kansas City off as the ‘disappointment of the season. Others went as far as to claim Mahomes was broken, and everyone had the Chiefs offense figured out.
But Kansas City had something to say about that going into Week 10 while heading to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. There, Kansas City took their primetime matchup against the Raiders as an opportunity to prove the talking heads wrong by clobbering their biggest division rival in front of a national audience. And it worked. Following what turned out to be a 41-14 tail whipping in favor of the Chiefs, the same pundits that had written them off and left them for dead released headlines that pretty much announced Kansas City was back.
The Chiefs had marched into Allegiant Stadium and completely flipped the script. Making a mockery of the Las Vegas Raiders in front of their home crowd, Mahomes threw for 406 yards and five touchdown passes. But tight end Travis Kelce probably said it best after making eight catches for 119 yards: “I’ve got my swagger back!” he told a sideline reporter.
But it’s not just the offense that’s found a spark, the defense has made a complete turnaround over these last four games, and it showed in Week 11 against Dallas. Which was the focal point in a 19-9 victory as the Chiefs shut down the league’s highest-scoring offense and held them out of the end zone for four quarters.
What’s even more impressive, the Chiefs are currently the only team in the league that has allowed 18 points or less in four consecutive games, and that’s thanks to how much their defensive unit has improved.
There’s no doubt the entire Chiefs locker room appears to have found their groove heading into Week 13. Kansas City is now riding a winning streak that shows no sign of slowing down as the team continues to improve.
They are 7-4 on the season, which leads the AFC West and is only 1.5 games behind the top seed in the conference. Thus, another go at a third-straight Super Bowl still isn’t out of the equation for the Chiefs, especially when taking a glance at their remaining schedule.
Four of the Chiefs’ final six games are slated against AFC West opponents, and three of them are scheduled over the next three weeks, followed up by games against the Pittsburgh Steelers (5-5-1) and Cincinnati Bengals (7-4) before ending the regular season in Denver (6-5). Giving the Chiefs the 26th-easiest remaining schedule in the NFL.
Factor in Head Coach Andy Reid’s track record, and it gives a ton of optimism on the Chiefs’ playoff chances. Firstly, Andy Reid has been incredibly successful against the AFC West since coming to Kansas City in 2013. He is 37-13 against the division and is 16-3 in games played in December. Additionally, in December, Kansas City is 27-9 under Reid’s leadership and is 13-2 with Mahomes under center.
More optimism is that the Chiefs are entering Week 13 fresh off the bye.
Since becoming a head coach in 1999 with the Philadelphia Eagles, Reid is 19-3 in his career immediately after a bye week and is 6-2 since being named the Chiefs coach in 2013.
Plenty of work still needs to be done before Kansas City can think about another go at the Super Bowl. Still, after the rocky season the Chiefs had in the beginning, the final six games will be an exciting finish as the team sets their sights back on another Championship with the postseason still in play.
