The 1967

1967 American Football League season

The 1967 American Football League season was the eighth regular season of the American Football League, and one of the last before the AFL-NFL Merger....

 Kansas City Chiefs

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. They are a member of the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Originally named the Dallas Texans, the club was founded by Lamar Hunt in 1960 as a...

 season ended with a 9–5 record and no playoff berth despite their AFL championship win and appearance in the inaugural AFL-NFL championship game

Super Bowl I

The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, later known as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporary reports as the Supergame, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California.The National Football League ...

 the previous year.

The club’s special teams got a boost with the addition of kicker Jan Stenerud

Jan Stenerud

Jan Stenerud is a former professional football player for the American Football League's Kansas City Chiefs , and the NFL's Chiefs , Green Bay Packers , and Minnesota Vikings .-Background:...

 from Montana State

Montana State University - Bozeman

Montana State University – Bozeman is a public university located in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's land-grant university and primary campus in the Montana State University System, which is part of the Montana University System...

, kick returner

Kick returner

In American and Canadian football, a kick returner is the player on special teams who is primarily responsible to catch kickoffs and attempts to return them in the opposite direction. If the ball is kicked into his own endzone, he must assess the situation on the field while the ball is in the...

 Noland “Super Gnat” Smith

Noland Smith

Noland "Super Gnat" Smith is a former American football wide receiver/return specialist for the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football League and San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League.-College career:Smith played college football at Tennessee A&I University where he...

 from Tennessee State

Tennessee State University

Tennessee State University is a land-grant university located in Nashville, Tennessee. TSU is the only state-funded historically black university in Tennessee.-History:...

. Interest in the team skyrocketed, forcing an increase in seating capacity at Municipal Stadium from 40,000 to 47,000. In June, Jackson County

Jackson County, Missouri

Jackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. With a population of 674,158 in the 2010 census, Jackson County is the second most populous of Missouri's counties, after St. Louis County. Kansas City, the state's most populous city and focus city of the Kansas City Metropolitan...

 voters approved a $43 million bond issue for construction of a sports complex to be completed by 1972.

The Chiefs' first non-playoff game against an NFL team resulted in a commanding 66–24 Chiefs preseason victory against the Chicago Bears

Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...

at Municipal Stadium on August 23. Injuries again hit the club hard during the regular season as the Chiefs clawed their way to a 9–5 record.