Three reasons to be optimistic about KC Chiefs’ Super Bowl chances

2. It’s tough to beat a team twice

Another major positive is the fact that basically, every serious contender in the AFC playoffs has beaten the Chiefs. You may ask yourself, “Why in the world would losing to every contender during the regular season be a good thing?!”

It’s an apt question to ask, frankly, because the reason behind this point is a little counterintuitive. In the NFL, time and again we see it’s difficult for one team to beat another team twice. I could list specific examples, but divisional play is satisfactory enough for our purposes. It’s why year in and year out bad teams still tend to play their divisional foes close.

Think of Raiders games in years past. The Raiders made the playoffs for the first time in years based on the incredible game on Sunday, and the Chiefs mercilessly crushed them twice this year. Yet, in years past the Raiders have repeatedly played the Chiefs closely and even beaten them a time or two. I’m sure most haven’t forgotten their silly victory lap after last year’s win at Arrowhead Stadium.

If that’s not convincing all you have to do is look back at last Sunday. The Broncos are objectively a bad football team, what else is new, yet they seem to have the Chiefs number. Though the Chiefs have beaten them an NFL record 13 straight times, and the Broncos haven’t made the playoffs in six years, about half the time the games between these two teams are close.

In the Tampa Bay Buccaneers case, it was losses in the regular season to the Saints and the Chiefs that flipped significantly in the playoffs. I could go on and on but the point is that playing a team twice usually presents a couple of advantages.

Sometimes it is simply that the better team is now more adequately equipped to scheme against the opponent because they have seen them play “up close and personal.” Mistakes are magnified in a loss and thus can be more effectively fixed in that scenario.

In other cases the team that won the first contest can tend toward overconfidence, failing to put the same effort into preparation they did the first time around. There are undoubtedly a handful of other reasons but we see this time and again.