Nothing has come easy for the Kansas City Chiefs during the NFL’s 2023 season. Plagued by inconsistency through the regular season, the Chiefs have fought through significant adversity to secure the No. 3 seed in the AFC Playoffs and had to clinch their Super Bowl LVIII berth by winning two road games against the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens.
As it turns out, Kansas City’s path to a Super Bowl victory will prove to be the hardest since 1981 by opposing DVOA, an advanced stat that measures defense-adjusted value over average.
Chiefs will have hardest SB path by opposing DVOA (4 games) if they beat SF. pic.twitter.com/kp8Dym8fvG
— Aaron Schatz 🏈 (@ASchatzNFL) January 29, 2024
This statistic is popular among analysts due to its ability to quantify a defense’s effectiveness and serves as a measuring stick to rank teams based on their defensive efficiency.
No offense since 1981 has had to battle against as many high-quality defenses as Kansas City en route to a Super Bowl victory.
If the Chiefs manage to secure their second-straight championship against the San Francisco 49ers, this factoid may be the most impressive aspect of their victory.
