You’d think a team winning 15 games in a single season would be a well-oiled machine, right? Kinda. Honestly, if you look at the chiefs football schedule 2024, it tells a story of survival more than total dominance. Most people remember the final record—a gaudy 15-2—but they forget that Kansas City spent basically the entire fall playing with fire.
They won. They always found a way. But man, it was stressful.
The season kicked off on a humid Thursday night, September 5th, with a narrow 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens. It was the kind of game that set the tone for the rest of the year. Isaiah Likely almost tied it at the buzzer, but his toe was out by a literal fraction of an inch. That’s how the season went. Every week felt like a coin flip that just happened to land on heads for Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid.
The grind of the chiefs football schedule 2024
The schedule makers didn't do Kansas City many favors. After the Ravens, they had to turn around and face Joe Burrow and the Bengals. Another win, 26-25. Then a road trip to Atlanta (22-17 win) and another to face the Chargers in LA (17-10 win). By the time they hit their Week 6 bye, they were 5-0, but they hadn't actually blown anyone out.
It was weird.
Usually, the Chiefs have a few games where they just drop 40 points and coast. Not this time. In fact, throughout the entire chiefs football schedule 2024, they never once scored more than 30 points in a regular-season game. Not once. That is wild when you consider they had Mahomes under center. Instead, Steve Spagnuolo’s defense became the real protagonist, holding teams to under 20 points for fun.
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Key stretches and the Buffalo heartbreak
Coming off the bye, they went into San Francisco and beat the 49ers 28-18. That was arguably their most "complete" game. Then came the "black hole" in Vegas and a Monday night thriller against Tampa Bay that went to overtime. Harrison Butker and Kareem Hunt—who made a surprising mid-season return to the team—were basically the only reasons the offense kept moving.
Then came Week 11. November 17th in Buffalo.
Every Chiefs fan knew this was the trap. The Bills have this weird superpower where they can beat Kansas City in the regular season but forget how to play football once the playoffs start. Buffalo took it 30-21, snapping the Chiefs' undefeated streak. It was a reality check. Mahomes looked human, the offensive line struggled, and for a second, people started wondering if the "three-peat" was actually possible.
How the regular season wrapped up
After the loss to Buffalo, the Chiefs went on another tear. They eked out a win against a surprisingly feisty Carolina Panthers team (30-27) and then swept the Raiders on Black Friday. The schedule was relentless with holiday games. They played on Christmas Day against the Steelers in Pittsburgh, which is basically a nightmare scenario for any team.
They won that one 29-10.
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That Christmas win was huge because it clinched the #1 seed and that precious first-round bye. By the time they reached Week 18 against Denver, the starters were mostly resting. They lost that game 38-0, which looks terrible on paper, but in the grand scheme of the chiefs football schedule 2024, it meant absolutely nothing. They were already looking at the postseason.
The playoff run and the Super Bowl LIX reality
The postseason started at Arrowhead with a 23-14 win over the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round. It wasn't pretty, but it was effective. Then came the AFC Championship—a rematch with the Bills. Unlike the November meeting, the Chiefs handled business, winning 32-29 in a game that felt much more lopsided than the score suggested.
Then came New Orleans. Super Bowl LIX.
The Philadelphia Eagles were waiting. It was a rematch of the Super Bowl from two years prior, but this time, the magic ran out. The Chiefs got blown out 40-22. It turns out that living on the edge for 18 weeks eventually catches up to you. The defense, which had been a top-four unit all year, finally broke under the pressure of Jalen Hurts and that Philly rushing attack.
What we learned from the 2024 campaign
Looking back at the chiefs football schedule 2024, you've got to appreciate the sheer resilience of this group. They finished 15-2 despite a point differential of only +59. To put that in perspective, most teams with 15 wins have a differential closer to +150. They were the masters of the "one-score game."
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- Defense wins championships (almost): Chris Jones and Trent McDuffie were All-Pros for a reason. They kept the Chiefs in games the offense had no business winning.
- The Kareem Hunt factor: Bringing him back was a stroke of genius by Brett Veach. He provided the grit the backfield was missing after Isiah Pacheco's early-season injury.
- The Mahomes paradox: Even in a "down" year where the explosive plays were rare, he still led them to the doorstep of history.
If you’re looking to study how to win ugly, the 2024 Chiefs are the blueprint. They didn't need to be perfect; they just needed to be better for the final two minutes of every game. While the Super Bowl loss stung, the 2024 season remains one of the most statistically fascinating years in the history of the franchise.
To truly understand why this team was so successful despite the lack of "flash," you should look at the defensive snap counts and the third-down conversion rates from that November-December stretch. It wasn't about the highlights; it was about the efficiency in the red zone and the ability to limit turnovers when it mattered most.
Go back and watch the Week 10 Denver game. That's the 2024 Chiefs in a nutshell: a blocked field goal as time expired to preserve a 16-14 win. Total chaos, but a win nonetheless.
Check the final standings and the advanced defensive metrics from the 2024 season to see how Spagnuolo's unit historically outpaced the rest of the AFC West. Examining the snap counts for Joe Thuney and Creed Humphrey also reveals how a healthy interior line allowed a struggling offense to stay afloat during those cold December matchups.