Vahe Gregorian: What Chiefs' 14-game winning streak reveals about their shape-shifting identity

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With what seemed to be some alarming symbolism, the Chiefs on their first offensive play of their first preseason game lost their most vital offseason addition, when Hollywood Brown suffered a devastating clavicle injury.

Weeks later, injuries wiped out burgeoning second-year receiver Rashee Rice and starting running back Isiah Pacheco.

Small wonder, then, that the Chiefs are a pedestrian 10th in the NFL in scoring, that they generally have to churn instead of burn through opposing defenses and that quarterback Patrick Mahomes, stellar as he remains, is among the league’s interception leaders.

Moreover, considering the offseason loss of L’Jarius Sneed and others on defense and the team’s salary cap-driven offseason decision not to add any established free-agent depth on that side of the ball, it might have been easy to feel flustered over all the flux early in the season.

Especially considering the two-time defending Super Bowl champions are seeking to become the first to three-peat, and have become the scourge of the NFL (and are targeted accordingly).

So what’s happening defies all that was lost, not to mention the stats and the data since.

Because against logic and gravity, the Chiefs just keep on keeping on.

With a (thus-far) less flashy but subtly effective offense and another top-five defense, the Chiefs (8-0) are riding a franchise-record 14 straight wins into their Sunday game against visiting Denver (5-4).

No, it doesn’t really add up. But it actually makes sense if you watch the Chiefs every week and witness them regenerate and shape-shift without a glitch.

Significantly in a league that fosters parity in everything from the salary cap to scheduling to its draft and beyond, the streak is the longest in the NFL since Carolina won its first 14 games in 2015.

It’s also a long seven away from the league record of 21 set by the Patriots in 2003-04.

Now, the Chiefs may or may not approach that rarefied air, a podcast topic this week to be revisited weeks from now if it’s still in play.

The point here, though, is what this says about who they are and why their prospects seem so viable for the real prize: that three-peat.

Leave it to the indomitable Mahomes to sum it up.

“None of us are about stats here; we’re about wins ...” he said, later adding, “Whatever it takes, we’re going to find a way to win the football game. It comes with experience, and it comes with a great culture that we’ve built here.”

The body of work, including Mahomes’ 15-3 postseason record and three Super Bowl triumphs in the last five seasons, is ample testimony to that.

So is this streak.

Through any number of predicaments with an ever-expanding repertoire of solutions, for nearly 11 months the Chiefs somehow always have found a way:

With a goal-line stand in Las Vegas or a fourth-down stop in Atlanta; through Mahomes’ legs on his career worst passing day in San Francisco or his compelling connections with Travis Kelce, and, increasingly, newcomer DeAndre Hopkins; through the thorniest postseason in NFL history; by coming through in the late-game crucibles while opponents falter.

And, nearly always, by agonizingly thin margins: by 6.92 points a game through the 14-game streak and 7.0 points a game this season, the smallest average margin of victory among 41 teams in NFL history to have won their first eight games.

One of these days, maybe the Ravens won’t be out of bounds by a toe on the last play of regulation — or Lamar Jackson won’t miss an open receiver before that or throw a careless interception in the AFC championship game.

Or perhaps the Chiefs will miss a crucial late field goal and the opponent will make theirs instead of the other way around like in Buffalo for the AFC Divisional Round game last season.

Or a coach like Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles will realize he has to go for two following a touchdown with a chance to beat the Chiefs in the last minute the other night.

From a distance, it might be easy to interpret those narrow victories with the indulgence of opponents as a sign of vulnerability.

But that dynamic speaks to their essence.

And it clarifies what they have that others are lacking.

A fusion of talent and culture and mindset that transcends the numbers and meets the moments.

So much so that it’s hard to know where one part of that equation starts and the other picks up.

“I think it goes hand in hand; cultural and also players: Every culture (doesn’t) have a Pat Mahomes; every culture (doesn’t) have a Travis Kelce,” said star defensive lineman Chris Jones, who could have mentioned himself among them as one of the team’s three players listed in the top 10 of the NFL pre-season Top 100. “So when you say cultural, man, you’ve got to talk about players, too.”

For sure.

But it also starts with a synergy at the top, a notion to which chairman and CEO Clark Hunt alluded in 2020 when head coach Andy Reid and general manager Brett Veach were signed to contract extensions.

“I think there’s a virtuous circle that you get there when you have the right people at the top,” Hunt said at the time.

I had never heard that term before then, but it’s rung true with me ever since.

That was all driven by Hunt’s decision to hire Reid after the 2012 season and animated by rare alignments and continuity that have come from that.

You can feel it between Reid and Veach, whose understanding of Reid, not to mention the NFL, goes back to starting his career as Reid’s personal assistant.

It’s there among Reid, Veach, Hunt and president Mark Donovan.

It thrives through Veach and his sharp and resourceful front-office staff, whose recent acquisition of Hopkins embodies how the Chiefs manage to navigate adversity … and even thrive by it.

It’s a living, breathing thing between Reid and Mahomes, who from the first time they met seemed to have a certain ESP between them.

It connects from Reid, an offensive genius, to defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, a mastermind himself, and highly regarded coordinating counterparts Matt Nagy (offense) and Dave Toub (special teams) and a broader staff with little turnover.

“The continuity of having a lot of the same people together … I think that’s huge,” Spagnuolo said. “I think that goes unnoticed. And I think that’s as important as anything.”

So, too, has been the collective ability to adjust and be resilient.

During games, like Reid did last week when he pushed the run after halftime because of his staunch interior offensive line ... and as Mahomes demonstrated for the umpteenth time when he returned from a scary in-game ankle injury and reset his approach.

After injuries, with acquisitions such as Kareem Hunt, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Hopkins — who has been something of a revelation as a particularly fresh and welcome element to this offense.

And during the week as the Chiefs’ game plans are contoured to the complementary style that regularly produces a winning edge for a team that has outscored opponents 77-42 in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Never mind that that’s not exactly who the Chiefs set out to be in the offseason, when they signed Brown and selected University of Texas flash Xavier Worthy in the draft.

They were out to revive their instant-offense capacity after a 2023 season in which they scored their fewest points per game (21.82) since the despair of KC’s 2012 season (13.19) led to the hiring of Reid.

Instead, they are morphing into something both different and more: a team that leads the NFL in third-down percentage (53.2%), embraces long drives and spreads the ball around while counting on defense and kicker Harrison Butker to make it all work as one.

“Different things,” Reid said, “have shown up at important times.”

But one thing has been the same since last Christmas.

One way or another, they win.

Something that no matter how long it lasts now figures to bolster them again in the postseason.

“It hasn’t been the fantasy numbers on offense,” Nagy said. “(But) we’re winning games, and I think we’re learning how to win games different ways. And that’s so important when you get down the road.”