I’ve uncovered a stat and I don’t know how to feel about it.
I’m conflicted. On one hand, I’m a stats kinda guy. Numbers don’t lie, and I like what they can tell you about a team or a player. Statistics aren’t everything, but they reveal patterns and trends, and they can quantify things that the eye test simply can’t.
On the other hand, I’m also a common-sense kind of guy, and what this particular stat says flies in the face of conventional wisdom and footballing logic. What if something we know doesn’t matter actually does?
I’m talking about preseason games.
The Kansas City Chiefs played three preseason games last month and didn’t win any of them, losing to the Los Angeles Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and tying the Seattle Seahawks. That might not seem like a big deal, but it puts Kansas City on the wrong side of history.
The Chiefs have never won a Super Bowl in a season when they didn’t win at least one preseason game. Never. Not once. They were a perfect 6-0 in the 1969 preseason, 3-1 in 2019, 2-1 in 2022, and 2-1 in 2023 as well.
In fact, the last time the Chiefs won a preseason game—they are 0-8-1 in their last nine—they went on to win the Super Bowl that same year. They beat the Cleveland Browns 33-32 in August 2023 before going on to win their second championship in a row.
Based on that, Kansas City might be behind the eight ball already. But it turns out this isn’t just a Chiefs thing; there’s a league-wide link too.
"In the entire 60-year history of the Super Bowl, only two teams have won the Lombardi Trophy after a winless preseason—the 1982 Washington Redskins and the 2021 Los Angeles Rams. That’s it. That’s the list."
That means a team that didn’t win a preseason game has gone on to win the Super Bowl less than four percent of the time. Crikey.
Of course, the link is logical. Good teams win, and if you’re good enough to win the championship, you would think you’d be able to win a preseason game along the way as well. The Rams, this year's Super Bowl favorites, went 3-0 in the preseason.
Not winning a game that has nothing on the line and no real importance doesn't necessarily mean a team is bad, so to speak, but maybe it is an indicator that they’re not quite good enough.
There is, however, something that is going Kansas City's way. The Chiefs tied Seattle 9-9 last weekend – the Seahawks also tied a preseason game last year as well, and they went on to win the Super Bowl. Maybe K.C. can follow suit.
So, after all that, does the fact that the Chiefs didn’t win a preseason game really matter? Honestly, probably not. But then again, when we’re talking about 60 years of data, maybe it does.
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