The 1963 Kansas City Chiefs season was the 4th and inaugural season for the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...

as a professional AFL

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

; Despite winning the

AFL championship game For its first nine seasons, 1960 through 1968, the American Football League determined its champion via a single playoff game between the winners of its two divisions (although ties in the standings in 1963 (Eastern) and 1968 (Western) necessita ...

the previous year, the Chiefs were 5–7–2 in 1963, third in the four-team Western division.Kansas City Chiefs History 1960s
''KCChiefs.com'' The Chiefs were winless for two months in the middle of the season and were eliminated from the postseason in mid-November after ten games. They finished the season with three consecutive wins at home, with diminished attendance. Their 27–27 tie with the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. T ...

in September was the first tie in franchise history. For the previous three seasons, the team was known as the Dallas Texans and played at the Cotton Bowl. Owner and founder

Lamar Hunt Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932 – December 13, 2006) was an American businessman most notable for his promotion of American football, soccer, and tennis in the United States. He was the principal founder of the American Football League (AFL) and M ...

moved the team following the

1962 AFL Championship The 1962 AFL Championship Game was played on December 23 at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston, Texas. The host Houston Oilers (11–3) of the Eastern Division were trying for their third consecutive American Football League title, matched against t ...

. Despite enormous success in

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County wi ...

, the city could not sustain two professional football franchisesKansas City Chiefs History 1960's
''KCChiefs.com'' (the other being the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divis ...

). The team was renamed the Kansas City Chiefs and moved into Municipal Stadium alongside the

Kansas City Athletics The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun as a charter member franchise in the new American League in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 for 13 seas ...

baseball team. The Chiefs 59–7 victory over the Denver Broncos in week 1 set two franchise records that still stand as of the end of the 2021 season: points scored in a game (59) and largest margin of victory (52).

Move to Kansas City

After three seasons in Texas, including an AFL championship in 1962, it was apparent that Dallas couldn’t support two teams. Hunt investigated opportunities to move his team to several cities for the 1963 season, including

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at the ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of ...

, and

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Tulane Stadium Tulane Stadium was an outdoor football stadium that stood in New Orleans from 1926 to 1980. It was officially the Third Tulane Stadium and replaced the "Second Tulane Stadium", which was located where the Telephone Exchange Building is now. Th ...

in New Orleans because the university didn’t want its football program to compete with a pro team, he was persuaded by

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...

H. Roe Bartle to move to

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

. The negotiations in Kansas City were conducted in secrecy. On several occasions Hunt and

Jack Steadman Jack W. Steadman (September 14, 1928 – July 5, 2015) was an American football executive who served as chairman, vice president, president and general manager for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League. Steadman retired as vice c ...

, the team's general manager, were in Kansas City and met with businessmen. Bartle introduced Hunt as "Mr. Lamar" in all the meetings with other Kansas City businessmen. Steadman was introduced as "Jack X."Covitz, Randy; Pulliam, Kent
Chiefs' founder Lamar Hunt dies
''Kansas City Star'', December 14, 2006. Most impressive about this move was the support the team received from the community even before the team announced the move. Hunt made the move dependent upon the ability of Mayor Bartle and the Kansas City community to guarantee him 35,000 in season ticket sales. Hunt had arrived at this number because that was the Texans' average attendance at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. An ambitious campaign took shape to deliver on Bartle's guarantee to Hunt of tripling the season-ticket base the Texans had enjoyed in Dallas. Kansas City's mayor also promised to add 3,000 permanent seats to Municipal Stadium, as well as 11,000 temporary bleacher seats. Along with Bartle, a number of other prominent Kansas Citians stepped forward to aid in the efforts, putting together more than 1,000 workers to sell season tickets. Bartle called to his office 20 business leaders and called upon them to form an association later known as "The Gold Coats", whose sole objective was to sell and take down payments on the 35,000 season tickets required. Not an easy task when one considers the move was still secret and "The Gold Coats" had to sell season tickets to people without knowing the team name, where it was coming from, who the owner was, which football league they played in, who the players or coaches were, when the team played its first game in Kansas City, or where it played. Hunt gave Bartle a four-month deadline; Bartle and "The Gold Coats" made good in only eight weeks. Later, Hunt admitted he was really only hoping for 20,000, for which he still would have moved the franchise. On May 22, Hunt announced he was moving the franchise to

. Hunt, with a roster replete with players who had played college football in Texas, wanted to maintain a lineage to the team's roots and wanted to call the club the Kansas City Texans. "The Lakers stayed the Lakers when they moved from Minnesota to California", he reasoned. "But Jack Steadman convinced me that wasn’t too smart. It wouldn’t sell." The team was renamed the Chiefs—one of the most popular suggestions Hunt received in a name-the-team contest and began playing in Kansas City's Municipal Stadium in 1963. A name also considered at the time for the team was the Kansas City Mules. The name, "Chiefs" is derived from Mayor Bartle, who 35 years prior, founded the Native American-based honor society known as ''The Tribe of Mic-O-Say'' within the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded ...

organization, which earned him the nickname, "The Chief". The Chiefs' first Kansas City home was at 22nd and Brooklyn, called Municipal Stadium, which opened forty years earlier in 1923 and had 49,002 seats. The Chiefs shared Municipal Stadium with the

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. The first appearance of the Chiefs in Municipal Stadium attracted just 5,721 fans for a 17–13 preseason victory over Buffalo on August 9.

Season background

The Chiefs' inaugural season in Kansas City began with owner Lamar Hunt's trade of quarterback

Cotton Davidson Francis Marion "Cotton" Davidson (November 30, 1931 – December 23, 2022) was an American professional football player who was a quarterback and punter in the National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL). Davidson attend ...

to the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raid ...

, which landed the number one overall selection in the

AFL Draft The Australian Football League draft is the annual draft of unsigned players, especially new nominations, by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Australian Football League (AFL). History ...

(which Kansas City used to select

Buck Buchanan Junious "Buck" Buchanan (September 10, 1940 – July 16, 1992) was an American professional football player who was a defensive tackle with the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football League (AFL) and in the National Football League (NFL) ...

). Ironically, the Raiders would later select

Gene Upshaw Eugene Thurman Upshaw Jr. (August 15, 1945 – August 20, 2008), also known as "Uptown Gene" and "Highway 63", was an American professional football player for the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League (AFL) and later the National Foot ...

in 1967 for the express purpose of blocking Buchanan. The Chiefs tabbed

offensive guard Offensive may refer to: * Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative * Offensive (military), an attack * Offensive language ** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict inj ...

Ed Budde Edward Leon Budde (born November 2, 1940) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive guard for the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL). High school and coll ...

from

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

with their own number one selection, while stealing another future Hall of Fame inductee,

Bobby Bell Bobby Lee Bell Sr. (born June 17, 1940) is an American former professional football player who played as an outside linebacker and defensive end for the Kansas City Chiefs. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the College Football ...

from

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

in the seventh round. Buchanan, Budde and Bell all became starters on their way to a combined 526 games with the team and all three of them played their entire careers with the Chiefs. Rookie running back

Stone Johnson Stone Edward Johnson (April 26, 1940 — September 8, 1963) was an American sprinter and professional football player. He played as a kick returner and running back for the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League (AFL). On August 30 ...

, who was a sprinter in the

1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics ( it, Giochi Olimpici estivi del 1960), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad ( it, Giochi della XVII Olimpiade) and commonly known as Rome 1960 ( it, Roma 1960), were an international multi-sport event held ...

in Rome, suffered a fractured vertebra in his neck in a preseason game against Oakland on August 30 in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

. He died 10 days later on September 8 and his jersey number 33 was subsequently retired. The Chiefs finished their first season in Kansas City with a 5–7–2 record and failed to reappear in the AFL Championship game for a consecutive year.

Regular season

Coming off the longest game (at that point) in football history against the

Houston Oilers The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston from its founding in 1960 to 1996 before relocating to Memphis, and later Nashville, Tennessee becoming the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers began play in 1960 as ...

in the

, hopes were high for a repeat title. The Chiefs could not find the same swagger in their new home in Kansas City for their inaugural season. They finished at 5–7–2, which included three wins to finish the season.

Schedule

Standings

References

External links

1963 Kansas City Chiefs on Database Football
{{1963 AFL season by team

1963 Kansas City Chiefs season The 1963 Kansas City Chiefs season was the 4th and inaugural season for the Kansas City Chiefs as a professional AFL franchise; Despite winning the AFL championship game the previous year, the Chiefs were 5–7–2 in 1963, third in the fou ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the w ...