The Chiefs still have a chance to break a coin toss record, even if they lost their first one of the season in Week 10.
If you’re a Kansas City Chiefs fan who has a lucky pregame ritual, don’t you dare change a thing. Just about everything is going well for the Chiefs in 2018, including the coin toss.
Through their first nine games of the year, the Chiefs were a perfect 9-0 on the coin toss. Five times they were the visiting team and called the toss correctly. Four times the team visiting Arrowhead Stadium called the toss incorrectly.
They were going for a record in Week 10, but lost their first coin toss all season:
Chiefs lose coin toss for the first time. Cardinals defer. Chiefs have scored on first possession 8 of 9 games.
— Kent Somers (@kentsomers) November 11, 2018
The streak — which climbed all the way to 12 when preseason is included — had become so unlikely that it was a tense moment for the Chiefs, who didn’t want to see it end or be the one responsible for making the wrong call. Via Arrowhead Pride:
“I don’t want that pressure on me,” answered (Patrick) Mahomes. “I joke around about that. I say that’s one of the most nervous points in the game for me right now. It’s kind of a running joke type of thing. I don’t think there’s any pressure. Whatever happens, happens. At the same time, everyone knows the coin toss thing is going.”
Mahomes was also asked if there was a strategy about calling heads or tails.
“It’s like that thing no one talks about,” Mahomes said. “No one talks about it. They call out the team captains and you go up there and whoever wants to call it, calls it.”
With a coin toss victory in their Week 9 matchup against the Cleveland Browns, the Chiefs became the second team to ever start a season with nine straight coin toss wins. The only other were the 2005 Lions, who couldn’t extend their lucky streak to 10. But including the last five games of the 2004 season, the Lions’ streak got up to 14 over two seasons.
That Lions team also had bigger problems to worry about. They finished the season 5-11 and Steve Mariucci was fired before the end of November. Nobody cared much that the coin toss was going their way, because not much else was.
It was a similar case for the Bears, who won the final five coin tosses of 2016 and first four of 2017. Add in four successful coin tosses in preseason and one before an overtime, and the Bears’ came out on top of 14 consecutive tosses. Chicago didn’t get to enjoy it much either, winning just two of those nine regular season games.
The Chiefs already have eight wins, so it’s just gravy that they’ve got coin toss luck too. The record for coin toss wins in a season is 14 — held by both the 2005 Lions and the 2016 Bills. So even if they didn’t get a new record with 10 straight to start a season, they still have a chance to set another coin toss record.