Kansas City Chiefs enjoy prosperous decade despite no championships

By Leigh Oleszczak | Dec 31, 2019

The Kansas City Chiefs run onto the field (Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

As the decade comes to an end, Kansas City Chiefs fans find themselves reflecting back on the 2010s. Even though no Super Bowls were had, it was still a successful decade.

While the Kansas City Chiefs didn’t make it to any Super Bowls in the 2010s, it’s hard not to look back on the past decade and feel good about what the Chiefs accomplished. Fans might not have felt that way when the 2010s began though.

Even with an AFC West title in 2010, things went downhill pretty quickly after that. The 2011 and 2012 seasons both resulted in losing records with the 2012 season being one of the worst in franchise history.

Yes, the 2012 season was historically bad on so many levels, but there was a silver lining there. The Chiefs ended up hiring Andy Reid and he remains as their head coach to this day and has brought a great amount of success to the Kansas City Chiefs. He’s gone 77-35 in the regular season and gotten the Chiefs to the playoffs in six of his seven seasons at the helm. He’s also won four division titles and has won two playoff games.

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Reid coming to Kansas City doesn’t happen without that putrid 2012 season, so as bad as that year was, it needed to happen in order for the Chiefs to be where they’re at now. They not only found one of their best coaches in franchise history, but that 2-14 season not only allotted the Chiefs with the number one pick in 2013, but helped push them toward trading for Alex Smith.

Smith helped the Chiefs win games and become relevant again and the number one pick turned into Eric Fisher. While it took Fisher a bit to figure it out at the professional level, he’s become a Pro Bowl left tackle, which is important when you have a franchise quarterback taking the snaps.

Oh yeah, speaking of franchise quarterback, that happened this decade too!

After not having drafted a quarterback since 1983, the Kansas City Chiefs traded up from pick 27 to pick number ten and selected Patrick Mahomes out of Texas Tech. Mahomes is only in year three of his Chiefs tenure, but he won the MVP in his first full year as a starter after throwing for over 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns.

From 2010-2012, the Chiefs were a bit irrelevant. Yes, they won the division in 2010, but no one really expected them to win the Super Bowl that year.
From 2013-2015, the Chiefs were starting to climb into relevancy again. They couldn’t get past the Broncos during those seasons, however, and played in the Wild Card in two of those three seasons.
2016 and 2017 were the years where we saw the Chiefs turn the corner, but they needed a better quarterback to get them to that next peak.
That’s what 2018 was for this franchise, seeing the future laid out in front of them and enjoying every bit of the journey. The Chiefs made it to their first AFC Championship Game since the early 1990s and even though they lost, the 2019 season could see them reach that pinnacle too, as they’re the two seed after some lucky dominos fell their way.

Must Read. Chiefs All-Decade Team for 2010s. light

While the 2010s didn’t net any Super Bowls, there’s a lot to look forward to in the 2020s for the Kansas City Chiefs.

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