Chiefs Kingdom couldn’t wait for Arrowhead Stadium’s parking lot to open up Saturday morning ahead of Kansas City’s Divisional Round playoff matchup with the visiting Houston Texans.
Not only was there bumper-to-bumper traffic at the Truman Sports Complex more than eight hours before kickoff, but some attendees actually arrived at the lot gates on Friday night, as seen in a clip from KCTV’s Mark Poulose.
‘Fire’s getting ready for the brats already,’ one Chiefs fan told the reporter while lifting the helmet-shaped lid of his grill.
These gentlemen were soon joined by thousands of others, as seen in a clip ESPN’s Jeff Darlington posted on social media.
‘The obligatory video of Chiefs fans lined up outside the gates of Arrowhead 8.5 hours before the game to tailgate in 18-degree weather,’ Darlington wrote on X.
It remains unclear if Travis Kelce‘s girlfriend Taylor Swift will be among those braving the cold at Arrowhead on Saturday.
Thousands of Chiefs fans arrive at Arrowhead nearly nine hours before kickoff, as seen in this social media post from ESPN’s Jeff Darlington
This fan was grilling outside the stadium lot on Friday night, according to KCTV
This has, of course, become something of a January tradition just off I-70. The Chiefs haven’t lost a home playoff game since the AFC Championship in January of 2022, when Patrick Mahomes & Co. fell to the visiting Cincinnati Bengals.
And with the team’s continued success, fans have turned each playoff game into a day-long holiday.
‘I’m so KC, I woke up EARLY knowing that #ChiefsKingdom was already waiting outside the Arrowhead gates,’ one fan wrote on X. ‘#tradition.’
And weather is, once again, failing to deter Chiefs fans who want to eat and drink in a parking lot for eight hours before the 3:30pm (local time) kickoff.
As of Saturday morning, temperatures were around 19 degrees Fahrenheit. However, there could be wind gusts from 30 to 35mph, according to KSHB meteorologist Jeff Penner.
This is not the first time Kansas City has hosted Houston in the playoffs. Andy Reid remembers quite well the previous time the Texans visited for a divisional playoff game.
He was still considered among the best coaches to have never won the Super Bowl. Mahomes was still a young, record-setting quarterback full of potential.
The Texans had Deshaun Watson, rather than C.J. Stroud, under center and he threw a pair of touchdown passes to help Houston race to a 24-0 lead inside a stunned Arrowhead Stadium.
‘We didn’t start off very well,’ Reid recalled, ‘that’s for sure.’
Taylor Swift could return to Kansas City on Saturday for the Chiefs’ clash with the Texans
Their finish was nearly perfect. The Chiefs scored 28 second-quarter points and rolled from there to a 51-31 win, which not only sent them to the AFC title game, but provided the momentum that ultimately earned Reid his first Super Bowl title.
‘Getting down like that,’ Mahomes said, ‘things could have gone south real fast. I was proud of the resilience of the guys.’
Now, the Chiefs hope another win over the Texans on Saturday can catapult them toward an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl title, and their fourth in a six-year span — a run that began with that divisional win over Houston on January 12, 2020.
‘I mean, it’s been a fun run up to this point. But we want to get to that ultimate goal,’ Mahomes said this week. ‘We know it’s going to be challenging. So we have to just really focus on the day and how we can get better, and try to win the game.’
The Chiefs (15-2), who earned the No. 1 seed and lone first-round bye, haven’t played many of their starters since clinching on Christmas Day. They chose to rest Mahomes and such stars as Travis Kelce and Chris Jones during a meaningless Week 18 loss in Denver, and risked the potential for rust to set in over 24 days between games against the need to get healthy.
Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud answers a question during a news conference
The Texans (11-7), meanwhile, have started to build some momentum after beating the Titans in their regular-season finale and blowing out the Chargers during the wild-card round. They lost in Kansas City the weekend prior to Christmas, but neither team is putting much stock in that matchup — one of three they played during a brutal 11-day stretch.
‘That was that week. It’s different circumstances that happened in that particular week,’ Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. ‘Now it’s a new game for me. Fresh start. New game. We will attack it just like it’s our first time playing these guys again.’
This is the sixth time the Texans have played for a spot in the AFC championship game. They have lost every one of the previous five.
‘That would be huge. I didn’t know that, but I think that will be a huge accomplishment,’ Stroud said. ‘This team is really motivated to go up there and play some good ball against a great Kansas City team that has been in these moments forever. It is going to take all of us and take a lot of execution to get that done, so we have to be on our A-game.’
