Looking Back: A History of the Chiefs in the Playoffs, Part 1

Seeing where Kansas City came from and how remarkable it is that they're here.

The Kansas City Chiefs are in their sixth straight conference championship game. This team has been so successful in recent history that it feels almost normal to type out that sentence. They are second all-time in consecutive conference championship appearances behind the New England Patriots with eight straight, and after this year’s performance with this group of players, it won’t be a surprise if the Chiefs supplant that record three years from now.

With that success comes a lot of rewriting of the record books. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce became the most prolific quarterback-receiver tandem in history against the Buffalo Bills, leapfrogging Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski for the most playoff touchdowns. Kelce needs just six receptions to supplant Jerry Rice with the all-time postseason receptions record and four touchdowns for Rice’s postseason touchdown record. With a victory on Sunday, Patrick Mahomes would be third all-time in postseason wins amongst quarterbacks, trailing just Brady and Joe Montana — in just his sixth year as a starter. There are countless more records to be held by this team and this group of players in the coming years that soon the postseason record books will be colored Chiefs’ red.

As the Chiefs have had that amount of recent success, it’s also rewritten some of the narrative in the minds of not just NFL fans, but Chiefs fans unaware of the postseason history of the franchise. The victory over the Buffalo Bills sent the Chiefs to a 22-21 all-time record in the postseason, which is incredible to think about when the team has done so much winning in the past six years. Today, we’ll start to take a journey down memory lane as a reminder where this franchise started, the ups and downs, and hopefully gain a little more appreciation for what this iteration of the Chiefs have been able to accomplish.