1963 Kansas City Chiefs season | |
---|---|
Head coach | Hank Stram |
Owner | Lamar Hunt |
Home field | Municipal Stadium |
Results | |
Record | 5–7–2 |
Division place | 3rd AFL Western |
Playoff finish | did not qualify |
AFL All-Stars | TE Fred Arbanas G Ed Budde T Jim Tyrer DE Mel Branch LB Walt Corey DB Dave Grayson DB Duane Wood S Johnny Robinson |
The 1963 Kansas City Chiefs season was the inaugural season of Kansas City's new football franchise. Despite winning the AFL championship game the previous year, the Chiefs were 5–7–2 in 1963, third in the four-team Western division. 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.
For the previous three seasons, the team was known as the Dallas Texans. Owner and founder Lamar Hunt moved the team following the 1962 AFL Championship. Despite enormous success in Dallas, Texas, the city could not sustain two professional football franchises (the other being the NFL's Dallas Cowboys). The team was renamed the Kansas City Chiefs and moved into Municipal Stadium alongside the Kansas City Athletics baseball team.
After three seasons in Dallas, 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,Atlanta,Seattle, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Hunt wanted to find a city to which he could commute easily from Dallas, and when he was unable to secure Tulane Stadium in New Orleans because the university didn’t want its football program to compete with a pro team, he was persuaded by Mayor H. Roe Bartle to move to Kansas City, Missouri.