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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 9-1 NFL Teams Win The Championship?
The Kansas City Chiefs fell to earth on Sunday evening along the banks of Lake Erie, ending their unbeaten run. Coach Andy Reid’s team lost on the road to the Buffalo Bills, 30-21, and fell to 9-1 for the season. Not only that, the Chiefs dropped out of their lofty perch as the Kansas sports betting Super Bowl favorite.
Sunday’s nine-point road loss to Buffalo saw the visitors from the Crossroads get trounced in terms of total yards gained (366-259) and time of possession (34:03 to 25:57), with Kansas City digging too deep of a hole to escape.
Entering Week 12 of the NFL regular season, Kansas City sits second on the DraftKings Sportsbook Kansas Super Bowl odds board, at +450. The NFC’s Detroit Lions, who are also 9-1 alongside the Chiefs, now are listed as the +350 favorite to win the club’s first Super Bowl in February 2025.
At BetKansas.com, we used the Champs or Chumps website to see how teams finished after starting their season with a 9-1 record since the 2014 NFL season. There have been five teams in the past 10 seasons that started 9-1.
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Season Performance of NFL Teams Starting 9-1
Situation | Number of Teams | Percentage* |
Making The Playoffs | 5 | 100% |
Advanced Past Wild Card Round | 3 | 60% |
Winning Divisional Round | 3 | 60% |
Winning Conference Championship | 3 | 60% |
Winning Super Bowl | 0 | 0% |
*Rounded to nearest whole number
How 9-1 NFL Teams Have Fared
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Surprisingly, none of the five teams that started the season 9-1 in the NFL since 2014 have gone on to win the Super Bowl that year, according to ChampsorChumps.us data. Three of the five (60%) advanced to the Big Game before coming up on the losing end, including the 2020 Chiefs team that lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl.
Check out Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl odds as the season goes on with BetKansas.com.
The most recent NFL team to make it through 10 weeks of the regular season without a loss was the 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers. That team ran its mark to 11-0 before falling to the Washington Commanders, 23-17. Pittsburgh lost three more times in the regular season and the Steel Curtain was bounced in the AFC Wild Card Round.
Before that, the last team to make it at least nine games into the year without a loss was the 2015 Carolina Panthers, who were 14-0 before they lost to the Atlanta Falcons, 20-13, the lone loss in a 15-1 regular-seaosn campaign. Carolina came up short against the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl.
The Chiefs themselves won nine games in a row to start the 2013 NFL season, but ultimately lost five of seven to close the regular season before crashing out of the playoffs in the AFC Wild Card Round, which is a fate that Patrick Mahomes and his head coach want to avoid at all costs this fall.
That quest begins in earnest Sunday in Charlotte, when Kansas City looks to get back on track against the woeful Panthers as a 10.5-point road favorite, per FanDuel Kansas Sportsbook. The operator has a -620 moneyline on Mahomes and company in North Carolina for the game, which kicks off at noon Central.
Check out Patrick Mahomes MVP odds with us as the Chiefs and their star quarterback aim for history.
USA Today Network photo by Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union
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