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Christopher Boan is a lead writer at BetKansas.com specializing in covering state issues. He covered sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years.
How Often Do 13-1 NFL Teams Win The Championship?
The Kansas City Chiefsā ongoing quest to shatter a bit of NFL history by becoming the first franchise to āthree-peatā as Super Bowl champs has gotten off to a hitch-free start in Kansas sports betting. The two-time defending champs sit at 13-1, the NFLās best mark with three games left in the regular season.
Things arenāt quite as rosy in the Crossroads as they might seem, however. Coach Andy Reidās team has the lowest point differential of any team to start 13-1 or better in NFL history (+70), ranking 33 points behind the 13-1 Pittsburgh Steelers of 2004, who were +103 at this point in the league year.
And though K.C. has the leagueās best record, DraftKings Sportsbook Kansas has dropped the Chiefs to fourth on the operatorās Super Bowl odds board, at +600 ā thatās behind the Buffalo Bills (+425), Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions (+450 each).
At BetKansas.com, we used the Champs or Chumps website to see how teams ended up the rest of the NFL season after starting their season with a 13-1 record since the 2019 NFL season.
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Recent Performance of NFL Teams Starting 13-1
Situation | Number of Teams | Percentage* |
Making The Playoffs | 2 | 100% |
Advanced Past Wild Card Round | 2 | 100% |
Winning Divisional Round | 2 | 100% |
Winning Conference Championship | 2 | 100% |
Winning Super Bowl | 0 | 0% |
*Rounded to nearest whole number
This analysis is exclusive to BetKansas.com, your home for the best Kansas sports betting promos.
Just two teams in the past five seasons have started 13-1, so we expanded our search deeper in history with ChampsorChumps.us data regarding the best 14-game starts in NFL history.
Since 2019, the two teams that started the NFL season 13-1 or better (the 2020 Chiefs and 2022 Eagles, each exactly 13-1) both lost in that yearās Super Bowl. The 2020 Chiefs fell to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; two years later, the Eagles lost to Patrick Mahomes and K.C. in the Big Game.
History Of NFL Teams Starting 13-1 or Better
Digging into history, we see wider trends that could be of interest to Kansas sportsbook apps customers.
The most recent NFL team that started 13-1 or better and won it all that season was the New Orleans Saints in 2009. They won 13 of their first 14 with a +185 point differential en route to the franchiseās lone championship over Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. The other Super Bowl winners that started 13-1 or 14-0 were the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the 1976 Oakland Raiders, the 1984 San Francisco 49ers, the 1985 Chicago Bears, the 1991 Washington Redskins and the 1998 Denver Broncos.
All are considered among the best teams of all-time, which makes the current Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl odds even more of an aberration.
In Week 16, Mahomes and the Chiefs look to get a step closer to yet another Vince Lombardi Trophy when they host the Houston Texans on Saturday, with a kickoff at noon Central time on NBC in the regular-season home finale at GEHA Field. The Chiefs will have little rest after that because after that comes a Christmas Day showdown against another Super Bowl contender, the Steelers, in Pittsburgh.
Mahomes limped off the field during Sundayās 21-7 victory over the Browns in Cleveland with a left ankle injury and his status going forward is unknown. What we know now is that oddsmakers have made the Chiefs a slight home underdog against the Texans. K.C. is a +126 moneyline wager at Caesars Kansas Sportsbook, compared with -150 odds on the visitors from the Space City, who are favored by 2.5 points.
USA Today Network photo by Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union
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