KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Kansas City Chiefs won their ninth straight AFC West championship on Sunday night, but none of the first eight were as good as this one.

The 12-1 Chiefs had one more game to play, and as has always been the case in this most unusual season, they managed to win it. Third kicker Matthew Wright, replacing two injured players, hit a 31-yard field goal just before time expired, allowing the Chiefs to beat the Los Angeles Chargers 19-17.

Afterwards, the Chiefs wore their AFC West championship hats and t-shirts, as they always do after winning the division. Otherwise, nothing about it seemed familiar to me. This time the Chiefs could very well face the Chargers or another division rival, the Denver Broncos, in the playoffs.

“Our first goal every single year is to win the AFC West, and it’s a great division,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “We’re in a lot of rivalries where everyone has played everyone hard and three teams will probably make the playoffs. That speaks for the division in which we play.

“It was an important game for us. We found a way to get a win, but now we have to keep building if we want to reach our ultimate goal.”

The Chiefs’ next goal is to secure the AFC’s No. 1 playoff spot, which comes with a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage in all postseason games prior to Super Bowl LIX, which will be played in New Orleans. is connected.

The Chiefs lead the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers by two games, each 10-3.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid called the ninth straight division title “a great accomplishment.” The streak is the second longest in NFL history behind the 11 AFC East championships won by the New England Patriots from 2009 to 2019.

“It’s still early in the year here, so we still have (four) games left,” Reid said. “So when I say that, we don’t just set up the tent here and call it a day.” We have to keep playing and play aggressively.

“We’re playing some really good football teams that are trying to get into the playoffs, so they’re going to be hungry and they’re going to attack, and so we have to make sure we continue to do that.”

The victory over the Chargers was the Chiefs’ sixth victory this season that was decided on the final play of the game. Reid said it gave this year’s division championship a very different feel.

“Every year it’s a little different how we got there, but I’m proud of our guys for just hanging in there,” Reid said. “We have so many close games, more than some of them other years. “The guys are hanging in there and they feel like good things are going to happen and they keep fighting.”

Wright is the third Chiefs kicker to make a walk-off field goal this season, joining Harrison Butker and Spencer Shrader. This kick, like the game itself, was only decided at the end.

Wright’s kick didn’t go to the middle, but bounced off the left post before going through. Reid joked that he told Wright to keep his next kick more to the right, but then got serious and acknowledged how important Wright was in his two games with the Chiefs.

He made four field goals in last week’s two-point win over the Las Vegas Raiders and four more against the Chargers.

“My hat goes to him for the field goals he made in tough situations,” Reid said. “It was great at the end.”