No NFL team ever has mastered this trait better and longer than these KC Chiefs

A day after the Chiefs once again prevailed in the late-game crucible that now feels like a mystical advantage for them, coach Andy Reid on his Monday Zoom call with media members paused when I asked him how he processes the stress of those final minutes.

Coincidentally, Reid just then was clearing his throat and needed some water. So he muscled through at a higher pitch than he normally reaches.

"It's so much stress I can't talk," he said, smiling.

More seriously in the wake of the Chiefs' third last-minute decision of the season, a 22-17 victory over Atlanta that epitomizes an overall nine-game winning streak with a historic distinction, Reid acknowledged the anxiety but emphasized the abiding comfort zone.

"Listen, I don't think you get used to it; you don't want it to come down to that," he said, later adding, "But the trust that the guys have in each other, I know that's easy to say, but when you actually have that, the guys know that something good is going to happen. (That) becomes very important.

"But you surely don't want it to come down to that."

Just the same, the dynamic has become an uncanny advantage for the Chiefs, who by now are years into being everyone's Super Bowl and nemesis and fixation and are targeted thusly week-in and week-out.

Only to almost constantly flourish in the most pivotal and dramatic moments ... as opponents wilt.

By now, it seems part of their DNA. Or at least muscle memory, with each episode reasserting and replenishing itself and no doubt exasperating opponents.

In this nine-game winning streak, the Chiefs have won by a combined total of 54 points — the smallest combined margin of victory for any NFL team during a 9-0 stretch, according to OptaSTATS on X .

No doubt that's a natural byproduct of the Patrick Mahomes generation: With four Super Bowl appearances and three titles in the last five seasons, anyone who follows the Chiefs has been transformed from the "What else can go wrong?" paranoia earned over a half-century into a repeatedly validated sense of anything is possible ... even likely.

All the more so if you play with Mahomes.

But if Mahomes was the catalyst and remains the key, it's certainly not just about Mahomes — who by his own admission has been off-kilter early this season.

The persona stems from the ripples of Mahomes and is derived from what Reid said about trust and how he's instilled that.

That extends across both sides of the ball and to special teams. It's exemplified among Reid and Mahomes and the front office.

And it's fortified by finding so many different ways to win that it now feels inevitable even when things seem dire ... doesn't it?

Certainly, that sense is pervasive within the Chiefs.

"It doesn't seem like there's ever a doubt with this team," linebacker Drue Tranquill said last week in the locker room of their training facility. "There's a confidence, there's an aura."

No matter any number of situations that Tranquill listed.

"There's a culture of winning," he said, "and (we're) going to get the job done when it needs to."

Indeed, finding a way is what it's all about.

And a case can be made that the Chiefs have done that as never before if you consider one season into the next and the quality of opponents along the way.

Fresh on our minds is their 27-20 opening victory over Baltimore after Lamar Jackson's shocking misfire to an open Zay Flowers in the end zone on the second-to-last play and Isaiah Likely landing out of the end zone by centimeters to end the game.

A week later, Harrison Butker's 51-yard field goal on the last play furnished a 26-25 win over the Bengals.

Then came Sunday night in Atlanta, where Nick Bolton's fourth-down tackle with 51 seconds left fended off the Falcons.

But even if this is a new team with a new identity , as Bolton pointed out before the opener, it's working from a foundational mindset established over years but most obviously related to the end of last season.

As much as anything else, that reservoir of mental toughness carried the Chiefs to their second straight Super Bowl triumph after the season seemed on the brink of crumbling after the Christmas Day debacle against the Raiders left the Chiefs 9-6 .

Along with some broader reset points, the Chiefs rallied because they had a knack for standing tall late as opponents shrank.

They held off the Bengals 25-17 with six Butker field goals and back-to-back sacks by George Karlaftis and Chris Jones in the final two minutes.

With most starters resting, they beat the Chargers 13-12 after a Butker field goal with 54 seconds left and holding the Chargers on downs.

In the outlier of the group, they clobbered the Dolphins 26-7 to open the playoffs in a game that was its own testimony to grit given the windchill of 27-below at kickoff and the symbolism of Mahomes having a chunk of his helmet blasted off .

Up next in the playoffs was the 27-24 road win at Buffalo, aided by a missed 44-yard field goal by Tyler Bass with less than 2 minutes left, and the 17-10 victory at Baltimore memorable for fourth-quarter takeaways provided by L'Jarius Sneed and Deon Bush.

Then came the 25-22 Super Bowl victory over the 49ers, courtesy of Butker's game-tying field goal with 3 seconds left and Mahomes' touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman in overtime that cemented a dynastic legacy .

And now this early 2024 affirmation of that X-factor.

Perhaps most notably this season, the Chiefs have flexed that despite several things going awry offensively.

Among them: They're without injured receiver Hollywood Brown and running back Isiah Pacheco. Mahomes has been inconsistent and Travis Kelce almost nonexistent. Goal-line offense has been an issue.

"We can all do better here, myself included," Reid said.

So much so that Reid at times Monday said things you'd normally expect to hear after a loss.

"There were some positives that you could take out of this thing," he said.

But of course he's right to focus on all that needs to be improved.

Because as encouraging as this apparently hardwired trait remains, the fact that it so often has to be relied upon also suggests the Chiefs could be vulnerable — and that the sheer law of odds is waiting to catch up with them.

"You're only as good as your next one; that's how this thing works," Reid said. "So it really doesn't matter what took place in the past. When you're in the present here, man, you've got to stay on top of your game.

"And that's all of us."

He added, "There's a certain mindset that goes with that."

Including until proven otherwise an attitude the Chiefs seem to have mastered when it matters most — stressful as that might always be.