Touchdown Wire gives Chiefs best chance at perfect 17-0 season in 2021
Could the Kansas City Chiefs’ loss in Super Bowl LV propel them to a historic 2021 NFL season? Our friends at Touchdown Wire certainly aren’t ruling out the possibility. Recently they ranked the Chiefs atop the five teams with the best chance at a perfect 17-0 record in 2021, the first year the NFL will play a 17-game regular season.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins went 17-0 after a 14-game regular season and a perfect postseason run through the Super Bowl. The New England Patriots had a perfect 16-0 regular season back in 2007. Since then, it hasn’t been accomplished, but Mark Lane thinks Kansas City has a shot.
Here’s why:
“Andy Reid is still the coach, Eric Bieniemy is still the offensive coordinator, and Patrick Mahomes is still under center. The Chiefs weren’t able to fix their blocking issues in two weeks after tackle Eric Fisher tore his Achilles. However, Kansas City has had all offseason to regroup from the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. In the Mahomes era, the Chiefs have gone 12-4, 12-4, and 14-2.”
The Chiefs definitely still have questions to be answered about the offensive line with the losses of Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz. They’ve certainly made the interior blocking better through their free agency acquisitions of Joe Thuney, Kyle Long and Austin Blythe. The questions about the tackle position will be answered in the coming weeks during and following the 2021 NFL draft.
Lane is on the right track here, though. This team, specifically the offense is always going to be as good as Andy Reid, Eric Bieniemy and Patrick Mahomes can make them. So long as those pieces are in place, the Chiefs will always have a chance to be at the pinnacle of NFL success.
A perfect season would certainly be tough to accomplish, with the Chiefs set to face just over a half dozen playoff teams from 2020. The NFL schedule is not yet set, so we don’t exactly know how favorable that will be for Kansas City either.
One thing that might stop this team from ever achieving a perfect season— Reid is a proponent of resting starters in the final game of the regular season if there’s nothing to gain in playoff seeding. We saw him rest starters against the Chargers in Week 17 last year and it resulted in the teams’ second loss of the season. That would likely be the case in most scenarios where they go undefeated through the first 16 games of the 2021 season.
List
6 surprise prospects for Chiefs in first round of 2021 NFL draft
