What are the Chiefs’ chances of pulling off a three-peat? Who has the highest probability of knocking them off? Our model answers those questions and reveals all its NFL season predictions for the 2024 campaign.
Ever since Mecole Hardman crossed the goal line to take down the San Francisco 49ers in an overtime classic in February, there’s been one thing on the mind of Kansas City Chiefs players and fans alike – a three-peat.
As Patrick Mahomes said in his Super Bowl parade speech, no team has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls. Are his Chiefs slated to be the first?
Below, we’ll break down just how likely this is, and who has the best chance to get in the way of Kansas City doing the unprecedented.
The History Against Them
While it’s true that no team has won three consecutive Super Bowls, there actually have been a couple of back-to-back-to-back champions in NFL history. The Green Bay Packers won three straight championships from 1965-67, but because 1966 was the first season of the Super Bowl era, they technically didn’t win three straight Super Bowls.
In other words, 1965 was the final season during which the champions of the AFL and NFL (now known as the AFC and NFC) didn’t play each other, meaning Green Bay’s season was done after winning the equivalent of the current NFC championship game.
In fact, this wasn’t even the Packers’ only three-peat. From 1929-31, before there was even a postseason, the Packers won three straight NFL championships via having the league’s best regular-season record.
As for the modern era, though, eight prior teams have tried and failed to win a third consecutive Super Bowl: the 1968 Packers, 1974 Miami Dolphins, 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers, 1980 Steelers, 1990 49ers, 1994 Dallas Cowboys, 1999 Denver Broncos, and 2005 New England Patriots. Five of those eight reached the playoffs the next season, though none of them made it to the Super Bowl.
It’s also worth noting that out of the three who missed the playoffs, one lost their head coach (Vince Lombardi resigned from the Packers before the 1968 season), and one lost their starting quarterback (John Elway retired before the 1999 season). As such, the only team to return its head coach and starting QB but still miss the playoffs was the 1980 Steelers, who went 9-7 but missed out after all five AFC playoff teams had at least 11 wins.
Though no team has pulled off the three-peat, it’s fair to say the 1990 49ers were the closest. After a dominant 14-2 regular season in which Joe Montana won his second straight NFL MVP, they were stunned 15-13 in the NFC championship by the Lawrence Taylor-led New York Giants. This is one of three instances of a team chasing a third straight Super Bowl title being eliminated by the team that went on to win that year – along with the 1976 Steelers (lost to the Oakland Raiders) and 1994 Cowboys (lost to the 49ers).
Simultaneously, it’s worth noting that the last team to reach three straight Super Bowls was the Patriots from 2016-18. New England won in the 2016 and 2018 seasons, sandwiching a 41-33 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at the end of the 2017 season.
Where the Chiefs Stand
Exactly what are the Chiefs’ chances of being the first to pull this off? Our model combines each team’s QB EVE with its collective EVE (efficiency vs. expected) and other advanced data to calculate a projected win percentage across all games.
What it tells us is that the Chiefs’ 89.6% probability of making the playoffs is the second highest in the NFL, as is their 11.0 projected wins across our thousands of simulations.
In terms of winning the Super Bowl, we give them a 10.9% chance – the third best of any NFL team entering the season.
Will the Offense Bounce Back?
It’s easy to forget this based on how the playoffs ended, but the fact of the matter is that the 2023 Chiefs offense was the worst the franchise had seen in years. Even in the Super Bowl win against San Francisco, the team only scored one touchdown in regulation, and that touchdown came on a drive that started at the 49ers’ 16-yard line following a fumbled punt.
Just how different were things last year? In every year between 2017-22, the Chiefs finished the regular season ranked in the top six in both points per game and total yards per game, including No. 1 overall ranks in both metrics in 2022. In 2023, those ranks were way down to 15th in scoring and ninth in total offense.
Those are far from the most advanced ways to evaluate offenses nowadays, but Kansas City also ranked a pedestrian 11th in offensive EVE.
As such, the offense will likely need to get back to its pre-2023 levels for the Chiefs to have a shot at history, and that all starts with the man under center. Across Mahomes’ six years as the starter, he finished 2023 with career-low values in almost every conventional passing stat, including pass yards per attempt (7.0), passer rating (92.6), pass yards per game (261.4), ESPN’s QBR (63.1), TD-INT ratio (27-14) and more.
Most mortal quarterbacks would gladly take those numbers, but they were a far cry from the Mahomes whom fans had been accustomed to.
From an analytical perspective, a concerning trend for Mahomes has been a steep decline in downfield passing. Mahomes finished last season with a career-low 6.94 air yards per attempt, but despite that, his catchable throw rate was only 80.1% – his lowest since 2019.
There are two core reasons a bounce back is looming, though. One is the sheer fact that we’ve seen him do it before. Five years of elite production is a much larger sample size than one year of being human, so we have thorough reason to believe the “real Mahomes” is better than what we saw in 2023.
The other one is the thorough personnel overhaul that the rest of his offense has seen. After the wide receivers were often the subject of criticism last season, Kansas City re-tooled by drafting speedster Xavier Worthy from Texas in the first round, along with signing Marquise Brown as a free agent from the Arizona Cardinals.
If the goal was to increase the team’s willingness to stretch the ball downfield, it was hard to ask for a much faster pair of wideouts to help in that cause.
A Young, Elite Defense
How did the Chiefs manage to win their second straight title with an offense that was merely slightly above average? Because the other side of the ball was the most effective it had been in a very long time.
Entering 2023, the Chiefs had never ranked in the top 10 in total defense in Mahomes’ career, and their highest rank in scoring defense over that span was seventh in 2019. Last season, they ranked second in the NFL in both metrics – their first time finishing in the top five in both since way back in 1995.
They also ranked fifth overall in defensive EVE. And perhaps most impressively of all, in their 21 games (17 regular season, four postseason), they never allowed more than 27 points.
It’s true that recent research has indicated that defensive success is much less sustainable on a year-to-year basis than offensive success. But with these Chiefs specifically, there are reasons for hope.
For one, youth. The oldest defensive player to start a game for the team last season was defensive tackle Chris Jones, who turned 30 earlier this summer.
Another is roster continuity. Though cornerback L’Jarius Sneed (Tennessee Titans) and linebacker Willie Gay Jr. (New Orleans Saints) found new homes in free agency this offseason, the rest of the defensive core is back, as a ridiculous run of recent NFL Draft hits has led to several talented players still on rookie contracts.
And one more is the coach in charge of that side of the ball. Steve Spagnuolo is the first coach to win four Super Bowls as a coordinator, with three of those coming with the Chiefs, and his genius has been well-documented.
Who Can Dethrone Them?
Earlier, we revealed that the Chiefs’ Super Bowl probability wasn’t quite tops in the NFL entering the season.
Who is ahead of them? The team that was inches away from taking Kansas City down in February.
Our model handily sees running back Christian McCaffrey, quarterback Brock Purdy and the 49ers as the favorites to take the title home, as their 24.1% probability of winning it all is almost double the next-closest team (Baltimore Ravens, 12.7%). While a couple of San Francisco’s stars have been embroiled in trade rumors, the team still arguably has the sport’s most talented roster, a notion which our model backed up.
Besides the 49ers, Ravens and Chiefs, the other two teams with at least a 6.0% chance to win the Super Bowl are the Dolphins and Packers. Much thanks to Mahomes’ former partner-in-crime, Tyreek Hill, Miami has been on a clear upward trajectory recently, making the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1997-2001.
As for the Packers, they were a hair away from upsetting the 49ers in last season’s NFC divisional round and among the hottest teams in the NFL at the end of the 2023 regular season, making them a sensible dark horse pick in the championship race.
Division Projections
As mentioned, our model projects the 49ers to finish ahead of the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals in the NFC West and to be a true Super Bowl contender.
In the NFC North, Jordan Love and the Packers are predicted to upend the defending division champion Detroit Lions. The model doesn’t see a big improvement for the Chicago Bears despite drafting Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze and adding Keenan Allen. They’re at the bottom of the division with the Minnesota Vikings.
We also project Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons to be the new kings of the NFC South over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Saints and Carolina Panthers.
In the NFC East, it’s Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys back on top as division champs over the New York Giants, Eagles and Washington Commanders. So it doesn’t see Philadelphia rebounding from last year’s horrendous finish.
In the AFC, our model predicts the Ravens over Russell Wilson and the Steelers, Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns in the North.
Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins reign in the AFC East over Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets, Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills and the Patriots.
The C.J. Stroud era is well underway with the Houston Texans projected to win the AFC South ahead of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts.
And of course, it’s the Chiefs in the AFC West followed by Jim Harbaugh’s Los Angeles Chargers, the Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos.
All in all, there are reasons it’s hard to repeat – let alone to three-peat. But not every previous two-time reigning champion had the incredible stability that the Chiefs are blessed with.
With Andy Reid, Spagnuolo, Mahomes, and a significant amount of starters returning, it’s impossible to argue that Kansas City doesn’t have at least a puncher’s chance of making history. And when we’re talking about the Chiefs come playoff time, a puncher’s chance is often all they need.
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