The Kansas City Chiefs have completed 52 seasons in professional American football, 42 with the National Football League (NFL). The list documents the season-by-season records of the Kansas City Chiefs franchise from 1960 to the conclusion of their most recent season in 2011, including postseason records, and league awards for individual players or head coaches.
The team began play as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960 as the Dallas Texans. Following the 1962 AFL season, the team relocated to Kansas City, Missouri and was renamed the Kansas City Chiefs. The team has played in 810 total games in a total of 51 seasons, and a winning percentage of .514. The team’s three 13-win seasons in 1995, 1997, and 2003 remain their winningest seasons to date and their 2–14 record in 2008 and 2012 is the Chiefs’ worst.
The Texans/Chiefs were the winningest team in the history of the AFL, compiling an 87–48 record from 1960 to 1969. The team won three league championships and served as the AFL’s representative in the Super Bowl in 1966 and 1969. Since the franchise’s alignment to the NFL, the team has won six division championships and six wild card playoff berths, seven of which were between 1989 and 1997 when the team never lost as many games as it won. Despite the franchise’s early success, the Chiefs has not won a post-season game since the 1993-94 playoffs and their victory on January 11, 1970 remains the franchise’s only Super Bowl title to date.
The Chiefs have had two main periods of failure. Between 1972 and 1985 the Kansas City Chiefs never appeared in the postseason and had only one winning season (in 1981) from 1974 until 1985. Since 2007, the Chiefs have also struggled, with two two-win and two four-win seasons.
Famous quotes containing the words kansas city, kansas, city, chiefs and/or seasons:
“Kansas City is lost; I am here!”
—A. Edward Sullivan. Professor Quail (W.C. Fields)
“Since the Civil War its six states have produced fewer political ideas, as political ideas run in the Republic, than any average county in Kansas or Nebraska.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Och, Dublin City, there is no doubtin’,
Bates every city upon the say;
‘Tis there you’ll see O’Connell spoutin’,
An’ Lady Morgan makin’ tay;
For ‘tis the capital of the finest nation,
Wid charmin’ pisintry on a fruitful sod,
Fightin’ like divils for conciliation
An’ hatin’ each other for the love of God.”
—Charles James Lever (1809–1872)
““Hear me,” he said to the white commander. “I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. Our chiefs are dead; the little children are freezing. My people have no blankets, no food. From where the sun stands, I will fight no more forever.””
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree,”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)