KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- So it will be the Seattle Seahawks against the New England Patriots in this year's Super Bowl. None of their fans needs a reminder the Kansas City Chiefs beat both teams during the regular season, 41-14 over the Patriots on Sept. 29 and 24-20 over the Seahawks on Nov. 16.
But the presence of the Patriots and the Seahawks in the Super Bowl does serve as a reminder of what could have been for the Chiefs. They were good enough to beat both of the NFL's best teams, so it certainly looks like the Chiefs wasted an excellent opportunity by winning only half of their remaining 14 games and failing to make the playoffs.
The Chiefs also had a couple of bad losses, against the Tennessee Titans and the Oakland Raiders. The loss to the Titans in the season-opener was one of two victories Tennessee would get in 2014. The Raiders were 0-10 when they beat the Chiefs.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a wasted opportunity, but I would say it’s a missed opportunity,'' Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said after the season's final game. "We had a chance sort of two-thirds of the way through the season to really lock down a playoff spot and we didn’t get that done . . .
"During some of those games when we let those opportunities get away from us, you had the thought in the back of your mind, 'Wow, those could come back to bite us.’ And at the end of the day it sure did and it’s disappointing.''
The Chiefs are the 18th team to beat both Super Bowl teams. They are the fifth to do so and still fail to make the playoffs. The others were the 1981 Cleveland Browns, the 1986 Seattle Seahawks, the 1993 Miami Dolphins and the 2000 Washington Redskins.