Quote:
Originally Posted by milkman
Actually, the Chiefs have never been AFC Champions.
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I had to look it up (duh), but you are right. The AFC wasn't christened until 1970:
In the summer of 1960, head coach Hank Stram gathered his players in Roswell, New Mexico, for the first training camp of the Dallas Texans.
The hodgepodge of veterans, misfits, and former college stars with genuine potential would be among the charter members of the fledgling American Football League.
"I do not know what the future of this league holds," Stram told his players. "I do not know if the league will survive, fold, or eventually merge with the NFL.
"But whatever happens, we will build this team on rock, not on sand. And after this league is over and done with, we will be the winningest team in it."
Stram may or may not have believed his sales pitch, but he could not have foreseen that a decade later his Kansas City Chiefs (the Texans moved from Dallas in 1963 and were renamed in honor of Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle, a.k.a. "The Chief") would close the book on the AFL when they played the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV in New Orleans following the 1969 season.
In 1970, terms of a merger agreement between the rival leagues took effect, with all teams playing under the NFL banner and split into American and National Football Conferences.
Kansas City, 11-3, finished second in the AFL West in 1969, behind Oakland at 12-1-1. But for the first time in AFL history, a two-tiered playoff format was employed that year-the second-place finisher in one division played the winner of the other division, and the winners advanced to the title game. The Chiefs upset the defending Super Bowl-champion Jets 13-6 in New York, and Oakland, playing at home, crushed Houston 56-7.
The Chiefs beat Oakland, breaking a 7-7 halftime tie to win 17-7. They beat the Vikes 23-7 to win the Bowl.
Stram: "Dawson’s performance was one of the most courageous of all time," he says.
In the locker room, Dawson received a call of congratulations from President Richard Nixon.
"We knew before the game that Kansas City would be as good as any team we played all year," Grant says.
History has validated that assessment: Though Kansas City never reached the Super Bowl again, five members of that roster now are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: linebacker Bobby Bell, linebacker Willie Lanier, quarterback Dawson, defensive tackle Buck Buchanan, and kicker Stenerud.
Kansas City’s victory was the ninety-second (including postseason) in the franchise’s brief history. The Chiefs won more games than any team in American Football League history-just as Stram had promised back in 1960.
http://www.superbowl.com/features/insider/chiefs