Hunt, Reid and Mahomes Address Chiefs Winning AFC West
With Sunday's road win over the Houston Texans, the Kansas City Chiefs secured their 11th victory of the 2022 campaign and are in the playoffs for yet another year. Most importantly, though, Andy Reid's team has clinched an AFC West title for the seventh year in a row.
That seven-year streak matches the Los Angeles Rams of 1973-1979 as the second-longest in league history. Kansas City now trails only the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era New England Patriots (11 years) on the all-time leaderboard. This level of dominance is far from common in the NFL, and it takes a lot of focus and determination to work in conjunction with elite talent in order for things to pan out. Reid tipped his cap to his team for another division championship after the game, also shifting focus to the future.
"I told the guys that my hat goes off to them," Reid said. "That was a way to fight through it. You set a certain level and then all of these new guys come in and they're going, "Hey, man, we've got to win this thing." There's additional pressure on that but just to get through it, you could see that was a positive thing and then you can sail from there. You've got that done, and now you just go do your thing and go play."
This clinching win didn't come easy, as the Chiefs struggled to put the Texans away on Sunday afternoon and actually trailed heading into the fourth quarter. Behind some heroics from Patrick Mahomes and Jerick McKinnon, as well as a key defensive play by Frank Clark in overtime, they ended up doing just enough to get to 11-3 on the year. With three more games left in the regular season, Kansas City is very much still fighting for the top seed in the AFC. Team Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt pointed that out in his postgame address, also appreciating the job his executives and coaches have done.
"We ended up clinching the division for the seventh year in a row — that's really quite an accomplishment," Hunt said. "[That's] very hard to do in the National Football League, and it's a testament to the hard work of Andy, Brett (Veach) and their staffs for putting together a team that has a lot of players who are able to come out and get that done today. However, the team recognizes that we've just given ourselves an opportunity. The most important football is in front of us. We've got some important regular-season games over the next three weeks, and then the opportunity in the playoffs to hopefully get back to the Super Bowl."
During the offseason, the rest of the AFC West made a concerted effort to catch up with — or possibly even overtake — the Chiefs. The Denver Broncos traded a generational haul for and have a massive contract extension to Russell Wilson because they thought they were a signal-caller away from being a contender. The Las Vegas Raiders were coming off a 10-win season and added one of the very best wide receivers in football while also spending to add on defense. The Los Angeles Chargers invested in their front seven to help the side of the ball opposite young star field general Justin Herbert. Through 15 weeks, those efforts turned out to be failed.
The best Los Angeles can do is make the playoffs as a wild-card team. Still below .500 on the year, Las Vegas is way on the outside looking in. Denver was eliminated from playoff contention when it lost to Kansas City. The proverbial top dog remains the leader of the pack, and that was the very first goal the Chiefs set out to accomplish at the beginning of the year. Mahomes admitted so after Week 15's win but like Hunt and Reid, he also knows that there's more left to secure down the road.
"We start every single season and the first thing we get told when we first walk in is, "Let's win the AFC West,'" Mahomes said. "That's our first goal, to come in and win the AFC West. We believe it's always a tough division and obviously, with the players they got in the offseason, it was tougher. We accomplished our first goal. Our next goal is to try and establish home-field advantage. It's not in our hands, but we can do our best to be ready in case we get that opportunity, and then win the Super Bowl."
