For those who have been living under a rock for the past year, pop icon Talyor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs superstar tight end Travis Kelce are dating. It entered the public eye when she showed up at a Chiefs game on Sept. 24, 2023, according to the Kansas City Star, after he invited her to a game on his podcast New Heigh, which Kelce hosts with his brother Jason after seeing her “rock the house” at Arrowhead Stadium where the Chiefs play. He said, “I’ve seen you rock the stage at Arrowhead. You might have to come see me rock the stage at Arrowhead and see which one’s a little more lit” on his podcast. She would accept this invitation to go to a game in the following weeks at Arrowhead, where she was plastered all over the TV broadcast and clips appeared all over social media. 

During “Taylor’s Era” in KC last season, the Chiefs would go on to be 11-6 en route to their second Super Bowl in a row. They would have a +77 point differential, which is the difference between points scored and points allowed. This is usually a statistic that is easy to tell how dominant a team is, the higher team is more dominant and the lower is worse. However, this season they had a point differential of +59, which is an 18-point decrease from last season. This could be a sign of a decline in the dominance of the Chiefs, showing how their chances of a 3-peat are decreasing. 

Another stat is the record in one-score games, which are games won by 7 or fewer points. In last year’s season, they would go 4-5 in one-score close games and have only 9 games. If the other team had scored again or the Chiefs did not score again they would have lost and had a record of 12-5, which is better than their regular season record. In this season, they are 10-0 in one-score games and would be 5-12 if those games had gone the other way, such as by a made field goal or a wide receiver’s foot being in by less than an inch. 

The dominance of the past Chiefs, winning by large margins and making the games not close are past. The stats above demonstrate that they are not the team they were last year when they had Taylor “on their side,” the best teams over the past 20 years have had point differentials in the +150 range and have less than five one-score games such as the New England Patriots in last 2000s and early 2010s with Tom Brady, which is considered the most dominant era of football in recent history. Additionally, Taylor went to six games last year and only one this year, I do not think this has an effect on the argument but it has kept this debate out of the light and here not being all over the TV Broadcast. 

I think that “Taylor’s Era” in Kansas City is not over because they are still a top-five team and none of the teams in the playoffs want to play because of years of experience and the Patty Mahomes playoff “effect” which is somehow, the Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes finds a way to win the game. This era of Chiefs football is still going strong, they have gotten the wins to be the #1 seed in their conference, however, their dominance has regressed and their chances at a 3-peat with the Super Bowl are dwindling.