Kansas City Chiefs

• 1. Introduction

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  The Kansas City Chiefs were not born in Kansas City. They started life in Dallas in 1960, dreamed up by a man named Lamar Hunt after the NFL refused to let him create an expansion franchise in his hometown. That refusal set off one of the most consequential chain reactions in American sports history. Hunt did not give up. He founded an entirely new league instead. What followed was six decades of triumph, collapse, long drought, and then a dominance so complete that the Chiefs became the first team in NFL history to appear in five Super Bowls across a single six-year span. How a team that once went eight straight playoff games without a win became the defining dynasty of the modern era is a story worth tracing from the very beginning.

• 2. From Dallas to Kansas City

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  Lamar Hunt's inspiration to build a rival football league came after watching the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. He tried to buy the NFL's Chicago Cardinals and relocate them to Dallas. The NFL said no. He asked for an expansion franchise in Dallas. The NFL said no again. So Hunt started the American Football League, filed the paperwork in 1959, and called his team the Dallas Texans.

  He hired Hank Stram, a little-known assistant from the University of Miami football program, as head coach. Tom Landry and Bud Wilkinson had both turned the job down first. Don Klosterman, the head scout, was credited with luring significant talent away from the NFL, sometimes hiding players to keep them out of the older league's reach.

  The Texans shared the Cotton Bowl with the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, a team the NFL planted there specifically to compete with Hunt. Despite averaging a league-best 24,500 fans per game, the Texans struggled to command public attention against an established NFL franchise. Their first two seasons produced records of 8-6 and 6-8.

  In their third season, the Texans went 11-3 and reached the AFL Championship Game against the Houston Oilers. That game, broadcast nationally on ABC, lasted 77 minutes and 54 seconds, the longest championship game in AFL history. The Texans won 20-17 in double overtime. It would be the last game they ever played as the Dallas Texans.

  Hunt concluded that the Dallas market could not support two professional football franchises. Kansas City Mayor Harold Roe Bartle made an offer Hunt could not refuse: triple the season ticket sales and expand Municipal Stadium's capacity. On the 22nd of May 1963, Hunt agreed to move the franchise. Four days later, a fan contest produced a new name. The team became the Kansas City Chiefs, named not after Native Americans but after Bartle's nickname within the Tribe of Mic-O-Say, a scouting society he founded.

• 3. The AFL Championship Years

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  By the mid-1960s, Kansas City had become one of the strongest clubs in the now-thriving AFL. The Chiefs tied with the Oakland Raiders for the most playoff appearances in the league's history and claimed more AFL Championships than any other team: three in total, in 1962, 1966, and 1969.

  That success put Lamar Hunt at the center of merger negotiations with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. The two leagues agreed to hold a combined championship game beginning in January 1967. Hunt is credited with naming it. He saw his children playing with a popular toy called a Super Ball and proposed calling the game the Super Bowl. The first few games were officially billed as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, but the Super Bowl name became the officially licensed title in time.

  The Chiefs went 11-2-1 in 1966 and earned an invitation to play the Green Bay Packers in that first championship game. Kansas City kept it close through the first half, but Green Bay pulled away and won 35-10. The Chiefs earned the respect of several Packers after the game, and that was not nothing.

  In 1969, the Chiefs lost twice in the regular season to the Oakland Raiders, then beat them 17-7 in the AFL Championship Game. Backup quarterback Mike Livingston had carried the team through a six-game winning streak while starter Len Dawson recovered from a leg injury. Dawson came back and led Kansas City into Super Bowl IV against the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings were favored. The Chiefs won 23-7. Dawson completed 12 of 17 passes for 142 yards and one touchdown, earning the game's Most Valuable Player Award. The following year, the AFL merged with the NFL, and the AFL's entire ten-year win total placed the Chiefs at the top: 87 wins from 1960 to 1969, more than any other team in that era.

• 4. The Long Drought

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  After the merger, the Chiefs posted a 10-3-1 record in 1971 and tied the Miami Dolphins for the best mark in the AFC. The two teams met on Christmas Day in a playoff game at Municipal Stadium. Kansas City lost 27-24 in double overtime when Miami converted a 37-yard field goal at 82 minutes and 40 seconds into play, surpassing even the famous 1962 AFL Championship as the longest game ever played. It was also the final game at Municipal Stadium.

  The team moved into the newly constructed Arrowhead Stadium in 1972, but the victories did not follow them there. Hank Stram was fired after a 5-9 season in 1974, and several future Hall of Fame players departed by the middle of the decade. From 1975 to 1988, five head coaches combined for an 81-121-1 record.

  There were individual flashes. Running back Joe Delaney rushed for 1,121 yards in 1981 and won AFC Rookie of the Year honors. He died the following off-season while trying to save children from drowning near his home in Louisiana. In 1983, the Chiefs drafted quarterback Todd Blackledge over Jim Kelly and Dan Marino in the same draft. Blackledge never started a full season. Kelly and Marino both reached the Hall of Fame.

  In 1980, coach Marv Levy cut kicker Jan Stenerud for the relatively unknown Nick Lowery. Lowery went on to become the most accurate kicker in NFL history over the next 14 years. Tight end Tony Gonzalez was selected 13th overall in the 1997 draft, a pick some questioned because Gonzalez had been primarily a basketball player at California. He became the career receiving yards and receptions leader at his position.

• 5. Schottenheimer's Near-Misses

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  On the 19th of December 1988, Lamar Hunt hired Carl Peterson as president, general manager, and chief executive officer. Peterson fired coach Frank Gansz within weeks and brought in Marty Schottenheimer as the franchise's seventh head coach.

  The 1988 and 1989 drafts produced defensive end Neil Smith and linebacker Derrick Thomas, respectively. The defense those two anchored helped the Chiefs reach the postseason in six straight years. In Schottenheimer's ten seasons, Kansas City posted a 101-58-1 record and earned seven playoff berths.

  The 1993 season was the franchise's most successful in 22 years. Quarterback Joe Montana and running back Marcus Allen, both former Super Bowl champions and MVP Award winners, joined the roster. The 11-5 Chiefs defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Oilers to reach the AFC Championship Game. The Buffalo Bills ended the run with a 30-13 win. That January 1994 victory over Houston remained Kansas City's last postseason win for 22 years.

  The 1995 season brought a 13-3 record, a home playoff game against the underdog Indianapolis Colts, and a brutal 10-7 loss in which kicker Lin Elliot missed three field goal attempts. Two years later, Schottenheimer chose injured starter Elvis Grbac over backup Rich Gannon to face the Denver Broncos in the playoffs. Grbac struggled, the Chiefs lost 14-10, and the Broncos went on to win the Super Bowl.

  Schottenheimer resigned after 1998. The decade ended in genuine tragedy. On the 23rd of January 2000, Derrick Thomas was paralyzed in a car accident. He died from complications weeks later. Thomas would later be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame posthumously.

• 6. The Mahomes Dynasty

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  Patrick Mahomes made his first NFL start on the 31st of December 2017, against the Denver Broncos, completing 22 of 35 passes for 284 yards. The following season, his first as a full-time starter, he threw for 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns, both team records. He became only the second player in NFL history, alongside Peyton Manning, to throw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in the same season, and won the AP NFL MVP Award, the first Chief to do so.

  On the 6th of July 2020, Mahomes signed a ten-year, $503-million contract extension, the largest contract ever signed in North American professional sports at the time, tripling the previous record.

  The Super Bowl victories came steadily. Kansas City won Super Bowl LIV on the 2nd of February 2020, overcoming a 20-10 fourth-quarter deficit against the San Francisco 49ers, with Mahomes throwing touchdowns on successive drives and running back Damien Williams sealing the game on a 38-yard touchdown run. Super Bowl LVII followed in 2022 against the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35, with Mahomes winning both NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP that year, the first player to accomplish that double since Kurt Warner in 1999. Super Bowl LVIII arrived the following season, a 25-22 overtime win over San Francisco, only the second overtime game in Super Bowl history and the first back-to-back championship since Super Bowl XXXIX.

  In 2024, Kansas City won a franchise-record 15 games, defeated the Houston Texans 23-14 in the Divisional Round and the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in the AFC Championship Game, becoming the first team in NFL history to win back-to-back Super Bowls and then return to the Super Bowl the following year. That season's Thanksgiving game against the Dallas Cowboys drew 57.2 million viewers, the most-watched regular season game in NFL history, peaking at 61.4 million by the final whistle.

  Head coach Andy Reid, who was hired on the 5th of January 2013, has never had a losing season in Kansas City. On the 5th of November 2023, in Frankfurt, Germany, a victory over the Miami Dolphins tied Reid with Hank Stram on the franchise's all-time wins list at 124 regular season victories.

• 7. Arrowhead and Its Record

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  Arrowhead Stadium has been the Chiefs' home since 1972 and seats 76,416, making it the fifth-largest stadium in the NFL. The original construction cost $53 million. A renovation completed in mid-2010 ran to $375 million, funded by $250 million in taxpayer money and $125 million from the Hunt family.

  The stadium built a reputation as one of the most punishing outdoor venues for visiting teams in any sport. Sports Illustrated named it the toughest place to play for opposing teams in 2005. The noise level was once measured at 116 decibels by the Acoustical Design Group of Mission, Kansas. For comparison, jet aircraft takeoff generates roughly 106 decibels at ground level.

  On the 13th of October 2013, during a game against the Oakland Raiders, Arrowhead fans set the Guinness World Record for the loudest crowd in an outdoor stadium at 137.5 decibels, breaking a record the Seattle Seahawks had set just four weeks earlier. Seattle reclaimed the record shortly after at 137.6 decibels. Kansas City fans set it again on the 29th of September 2014, on Monday Night Football against the New England Patriots, recording 142.2 decibels. The stadium has carried the name GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium since 2021 following a naming rights agreement.

  On the 22nd of December 2025, the Chiefs announced they will leave Arrowhead and move to Kansas City, Kansas, with plans for a new stadium in Wyandotte County set to open in time for the 2031 NFL season.