Chiefs’ unprecedented three-peat attempt includes being first team to play on six days of week since 1927
By Grant Gordon, Digital Content Editor
They are the trophy winners and history makers of this era’s NFL.
The Kansas City Chiefs have become a dynasty and done so no matter where the schedule has taken them. In 2024, the Chiefs will look to write another chapter in NFL lore as they endeavor to become the first team to three-peat as Super Bowl champions.
Making that history all the more arduous to achieve will be a scheduling caveat in which Kansas City will play on six separate days of the week during the regular season, becoming the first NFL team to do so since the 1927 New York Yankees, according to NFL Research.
The Chiefs will play games on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, a docket unprecedented in the Super Bowl era and last matched by the aforementioned ’27 Yankees. And it’s not those Murderers’ Row Yankees who won the ’27 World Series, it’s the then-football version that went 7-8-1 and played on every day but Monday because Monday Night Football didn’t debut for another 40-plus years.
It’s a historic curveball thrown at the Chiefs as Patrick Mahomes and Co. become the first team to vie for an unprecedented Super Bowl back-to-back-to-back triumph since Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
With their Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers last season, Kansas City ended the NFL’s longest drought between repeat champions, as the Pats accomplished the feat in 2003-2004.
Not only has no NFL team ever won three straight Super Bowls, but none of the eight teams that have won back-to-back Lombardis ever returned to the big game the following year. Three of those squads lost in the ensuing conference title game, two lost in the Divisional Round and three missed the postseason altogether.
Of course, the NFL didn’t start in the Super Bowl era, so the Chiefs might be looking to set Super Bowl history, but they’re likewise chasing the man whose name adorns the Super Bowl trophy.
Vince Lombardi’s Packers of 1965-1967 were the last league team to win three NFL titles in a row, claiming an NFL Championship in ’65 ahead of winning the first two Super Bowls — including Super Bowl 1 against the Chiefs.
The Chiefs’ bid for history will of course be televised — and streamed and in the spotlight on a near-weekly basis. Kansas City’s three-peat window will play out with eight exclusive-window games — the NFL Kickoff Game, two Sunday Night Football tilts, two Monday Night Football contests, the Black Friday game, a Week 16 Saturday showdown and a Christmas game on the following Wednesday. Amid this roller-coaster ride, the Chiefs can become the first team in league lore to win a game on five different days of the week during a single season, per NFL Research.
One thing the Chiefs won’t do is travel for an international contest. However, their previous overseas journeys offer more evidence of the club’s historical endeavors.
There have only been two franchises to claim Super Bowl glory in the same season in which they partook in the NFL’s International Games — the New York Giants in 2007 and the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019 and 2023.
There has been just one club to hoist a Lombardi Trophy in the same season in which it played a game in Mexico. That was the Chiefs’ ’19 squad.
There has been but one team to triumph in a Super Bowl during the same campaign in which it competed in a game in Germany. That was last season’s Chiefs.
No matter where the schedule has taken them, the Chiefs have persevered en route to dynastic fortune. This season, Kansas City will embark upon a historic schedule as it strives to make even more Super Bowl history.
