After the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Raiders when Las Vegas fumbled away a chance to kick the winning field goal on the day after Thanksgiving, many people expected the Super Bowl champions’ luck to run out soon.
But it didn’t happen this week.
The Chiefs, one of the luckiest teams in NFL history, won their 15th straight one-possession game on Sunday night. Matthew Wright, filling in for two injured kickers, made a 31-yard field goal that bounced off the left upright and went through, giving Kansas City another dramatic, 19-17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers.
This was the Chiefs’ sixth win this season decided on the last play of the game.
“I’m certainly glad that we’ve ended up on the winning side of those games,” said Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt, who also celebrated the team’s ninth consecutive AFC West title, which is the second-longest streak in NFL history.
“As we’ve been going through it, I’ve thought a lot about last year, where we had a lot of close games and they tended to go the other way, particularly in November and December,” Hunt said.
“It’s a credit to the level of competition in the National Football League. All these guys are professionals, they’re very talented, and you know our guys have hung in there and found ways to get the ‘W’ at the end of the game.”
It leads to the question: Is it better to be good or lucky? Maybe the Chiefs are a little of both.
The Chiefs (12-1) now have a two-game lead over Buffalo after the Bills lost to the Rams, and it’s hard to argue that they’ve just been lucky to claim the No. 1 seed in the playoff race. Whether it was a toe-tap out of bounds against the Ravens or three different kickers hitting game-winning field goals, the Chiefs have been winning in close games.
Maybe the answer is that the Chiefs are simply good enough that it takes almost a perfect performance to beat them.
But a little luck never hurts.
“Even though I feel like we could have played better, I mean that’s a good football team,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said of the Chargers, who have now lost seven straight games to their biggest division rival. “As long as we have a chance to go out there and have the football and make a play happen, I feel like we’re going to make it happen.”
