Streaking: How the Chiefs went 22-4 over their last 26 regular-season games

The players started mobbing toward midfield before the clock at Qualcomm Stadium struck zero. There was no use showing any restraint.

This scene, in the waning seconds of the Chiefs’ 37-27 win at San Diego last weekend, was more than a year in the making, and worthy of appreciation. The Chiefs had just clinched their first AFC West title since 2010, finishing 12-4 and completing a rare sweep of their division opponents.

Linebacker Justin Houston, with a surgically repaired knee, half-skipped to midfield with a huge grin on his face. Tamba Hali, with two chronically swollen, 33-year-old knees of his own, sprinted and tomahawk-chopped his way to the Chiefs’ tunnel, which was surrounded by red-and-gold-clad fans.

Inside the locker room, tight end Travis Kelce, wearing a gray AFC West Champs hat, sat with a phone in his hand, looking at a celebratory picture he’d just snapped with his teammates.

“I’m getting ready to send this out,” he said with a smile.

In the middle of it all stood coach Andy Reid, the man who had led them to this moment. On this day, he’d punctuated his customary post-victory message — “Let’s go Chieeeeeefs!” — with an overhand fist pump.

“I’m proud of you, men,” Reid said.

Reid’s happiness with his players extends beyond what has transpired this season.

Over the last regular season and a half, no team has won as much as the Chiefs, who have compiled a 22-4 record in their last 26 regular-season games. In the process, they’ve captured the respect of many across the NFL.

Their secret? In football parlance, win in all three phases of the game — offense, defense and special teams. And consistently display exceptional mental toughness. All easier said than done, to be sure.

But this resilient group of players takes a cue from their 58-year-old head coach.

“A lot of people don’t understand how hard it is to win in this league with the rules and the way the league is set up,” said television analyst Jon Gruden, who won Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “It’s a credit to Andy.”

Reid went 4-12 in 2012, his last year as head coach in Philadelphia. But he immediately turned around the Chiefs’ fortunes in 2013, leading them to an 11-5 record one year removed from a 2-14 campaign.

But it’s what he did last season, when the Chiefs started the year 1-5, that stands apart as perhaps Reid’s most impressive feat.

In the middle of October 2015, serious questions were being raised about the Chiefs’ direction. They’d gone from 11-5 in 2013 to 9-7 in 2014, and a losing season in 2015 would be a disaster. That first year under Reid might be deemed a fluke, and at the very least, the heat would be raised on both Reid and general manager John Dorsey, not to mention quarterback Alex Smith.

Making matters even more pressing, the Royals were well on their way to the club’s first World Series title in decades. The Chiefs’ neighbors at the Truman Sports Complex were the toast of the town, and there sat the Chiefs, a 1-5 afterthought; at least one news conference that October attracted just one reporter.

Fifteen months and 22 regular-season victories later, the same room was packed with media this week. The Chiefs have come a long way since October 2015, and for that, fans, players and others around the organization can thank Reid’s calm, consistent, level-headed demeanor.

“He doesn’t get too high or too down depending on what’s going on during the course of a season,” team chairman Clark Hunt said amidst the Chiefs’ last playoff run. “He continues to tell the guys to believe in themselves and to stick together. He does that with his coaching staff and he does that with the players. I think that was probably the key to the turnaround early in the season.”

Gruden, who coached with Reid in Green Bay in the early 1990s, agrees.

“I just don’t think he flinches,” Gruden said. “He’s been through a lot as a coach, he’s been through a lot as a human being, and I think he has a real deep faith in the program and in what the mission is. And he knows the mission is going to have bumps.

“Sometimes they’re bumpier rides than others, but he has a lot of confidence in himself, in his program and in the people around him, and I think that permeates the entire organization and the locker room.”

Reid said the secret to keeping a steady hand ultimately comes down to a single factor.

“I think trust is a huge thing on any team — probably in life, marriage, everything else, you’ve got to have trust,” Reid said. “Ultimate trust in these guys.”

As the team’s fortunes turned following last season’s 1-5 start, Reid showed that trust in ceding more control of the offense to Smith. That, plus a commitment to running the ball, gave new life to a team that had lost star running back Jamaal Charles during its swoon.

Those adjustments, plus stingy defense, fueled an 11-game winning streak that included a wild-card playoff victory at Houston last January, the Chiefs’ first postseason win in 22 years.

Stung by the loss that followed, at New England in the divisional round, the Chiefs opened camp last summer with the explicit goal of winning the Super Bowl. The defense has continued to dominate, ranking first in the league in takeaways (33); their special-teams play has been elite (they’re tied for the league lead in return touchdowns, with three); and the offense, despite some rocky times this season, has generally been more explosive.

The result? The Chiefs’ best regular season of Reid’s tenure in KC.

“They can beat ya defensively with opportunistic defense — they can take the ball away,” Gruden said. “They can humiliate you in the kicking game. I mean, they can bury ya. And Andy Reid can conduct some of the most exotic, time-consuming drives in football. They can hold the ball for six, seven minutes on a possession.

“Bottom line is, this is a very good team because they can function and beat ya in all three areas.”

With a plus-30 turnover margin the last two seasons, they’ve also found ways to win in all sorts of adverse situations this season.

Consider the following:

▪ They rallied from a 21-point second-half deficit to stun San Diego 33-27 in the regular-season opener.

▪ They mounted a 17-point second-half comeback to beat defending NFC champion Carolina 20-17 on the road.

▪ They mustered a late fourth-quarter drive on the road to pull even with defending Super Bowl champion Denver, a game they eventually won 30-27.

▪ They got the NFL’s first “pick 2” on Eric Berry’s return of a Matt Ryan two-point conversion attempt, the difference maker in a 29-28 win over Atlanta.

▪ And they held on for a 21-13 home win over Oakland after losing defensive leader Derrick Johnson to a season-ending Achilles injury.

Smith attributes the Chiefs’ ability to consistently mount comebacks to the lessons learned during the tough times of the previous three seasons, including that 1-5 start in 2015, their wild-card loss at Indianapolis in 2014, and multiple excruciating losses to Denver.

“I do think experience in big games against big opponents helps,” Smith explained. “We’ve got a group that over the last few years has gotten more experience in those areas. You benefit from all of that.”

What’s more, Smith said, those losses taught the Chiefs the underlying key to stacking wins upon wins: never let up emotionally.

“The reason it’s able to happen is because you still have that edge that you haven’t done enough, and there’s always something more you could do to help prepare,” Smith said. “You’ve got to have that edge about you in order to go on streaks like that.”

Barring upsets this weekend, the Chiefs will play host to the playoff-tested Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round on Jan. 15. Win that game, and they’d face another daunting task: another road game at New England, this time for the AFC crown.

Reid and company are ready to do whatever it takes to end the franchise’s 47-season Super Bowl drought and uncork more smile-filled celebrations like the one in San Diego.

“They do what you ask them to do, and they do it a hundred miles an hour,” Reid said of his players. “There’s not a lot of complaining going on or, ‘Why are we doing this?’ or ‘Why are we doing that?’ It’s low maintenance and let’s go play.”

This story was originally published January 5, 2017 at 7:54 PM with the headline "Streaking: How the Chiefs went 22-4 over their last 26 regular-season games."