KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Eclipsed and in certain ways rendered irrelevant by the clobbering the Chiefs absorbed in the Super Bowl, you may recall, was something that until then had defined last season.

En route to becoming the first team in NFL history to win back-to-back Super Bowls and return for a chance at the trifecta, the Chiefs somehow emerged unscathed through near-constant peril in late-game crucibles:

Eleven times they played in one-score games, and 11 times they won them to establish an NFL record with 17 straight such wins.

Never mind that there were some preposterous, slapstick elements along with the blocked field goals or goal-line stands along the way.

Like Ravens receiver Isaiah Likely’s foot landing centimeters out of the end zone on the last play of the opener to preserve a 27-20 victory.

And a dropped snap by Las Vegas quarterback Aidan O’Connell with the Raiders on the verge of a would-be game-winning field-goal attempt saving a 19-17 lead.

Or reserve kicker Matthew Wright clanging a kick off the upright and through to beat the Chargers 19-17 on the last play.

Sure, you could dismiss all that as flukiness or signs of vulnerability. I certainly did, at times.

And if you saw it that way, well, you got affirmation with the 40-22 debacle inflicted by the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX.

But there are a couple of major common denominators in all this that also tell us something else until it’s proven otherwise — a key variable for the Chiefs in the 2025 season.

That the ability to prevail again and again with scant margin for error in a league obsessed with creating parity seems hard-wired into this group dynamic, as if it’s some sort of collective DNA.

And it stems from this: the infusion of the mind-over-matter, will-to-win mindset of the Patrick Mahomes Era into the culture and grueling training camp work ethic established by coach Andy Reid — a standard being reinforced in real time on Sunday at Missouri Western as the team practiced in full pads for the first time.

“You’ve just got to gut it out; there’s no looking for subs, there’s no looking for ways out,” defensive lineman Mike Danna said, referring largely to the dreaded long-drive drill. “You’ve just got to realize this is the time to dig deep; this is the time to grow.”

He added, “Coach emphasizes growing in uncomfortable situations. That’s all the long-drive drill is.”

Added tight end Noah Gray: “You end up talking to yourself in those drills; you’ve got to push past the tiredness. … Don’t let your tiredness win.”

No doubt that’s a vital foundation for Reid, an old-school taskmaster who was plenty successful before Mahomes magically materialized in 2017 and became QB1 in 2018.

But here’s something I didn’t fully realize until researching it on Sunday.

For most of Reid’s career, both in Philadelphia and through his first five seasons in Kansas City, his teams were the epitome of average in one-score games in the regular season (72-72).

And they were downright bad in those scenarios in the postseason: 2-9 overall and 0-4 with the Chiefs.

Then along came Mahomes, and chances are you know most of the rest. Since the two-time NFL MVP took over after one season as Alex Smith’s understudy, the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls — with Mahomes the MVP each time — and appeared in five.

Remarkable enough.

And if not for two home overtime losses in AFC Championship Games, in fact, the Chiefs would have played in the last seven Super Bowls. Staggering stuff.

But here’s the pivotal microcosm in all this: Reid’s record in one-score games since the advent of Mahomes is 46-19 in the regular season and 9-2 in the playoffs — exactly the opposite of his previous playoff record in games by that margin.

It’s not all because of Mahomes, of course, as the games mentioned above remind.

It’s a blend of active ingredients, starting with a thriving alignment among ownership, the front office and Reid.

It’s about the essential decision to replace defensive coordinator Bob Sutton with Steve Spagnuolo after the 2018 season ended with a 37-31 AFC Championship overtime loss to the Patriots — leaving Reid 0-5 in one-score postseason games in Kansas City.

And it’s a reflection of too many key players to name on both sides of the ball, including stars like Travis Kelce and Chris Jones and Tyrann Mathieu and Tyreek Hill, and all those in supporting roles — Daniel Sorensen, anyone? — who came through when it mattered most.

Nothing, though, has been more of a through-line and obvious catalyst to what Reid had going than the arrival of Mahomes — ever-resilient and defying convention and gravity and imposing his mindset and will not just on opponents, but on all around him.

It’s hardly always been smooth, and for a variety of reasons his statistics haven’t been gaudy the last two seasons. Mahomes threw for more than 1,000 yards less in each year than his career-high 5,250 in 2022. And his 27 and 26 touchdown passes in 2023 and 2024, respectively, were barely half of the 50 he produced in his first season as Kansas City’s starter.

But what abides entering the 2025 season is the endless reservoir of resolve and infectious sense that his teams are meant to win and never out of it.

The notion that of course they’d triumph in three Super Bowls after being down double digits.

That included taking over Super Bowl LVIII by completing 13 of 16 passes on the decisive final two series and running for 8 yards on fourth-and-1 in overtime, and another 19 later to set up the game-winning touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman.

The last Super Bowl was a jarring reminder that there are exceptions to every rule. But it also looms as a prompt to a redemptive season.

How this season plays out, of course, remains to be seen.

But as Reid conducts his rite of summer, observing how his players work to “kind of push through that wall … (and) find out who’s willing to keep it going,” he sure can take comfort in the presence of one of them who’s been able to keep it all going in ways seldom before seen.

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