These trends suggest that the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl

Forget about yards, tackles and touchdowns. There are only two statistics worth noting when trying to determine this year’s Super Bowl winner, and both of them favor the Kansas City Chiefs.

Chicago-based social media user Jay Cuda shared a graphic to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Friday morning detailing each instance in the past 30 years when Super Bowl opponents have met in the middle (between their two home bases) to battle against each other.

With this year’s game taking place in Las Vegas, the Chiefs will head west in their journey to Sin City, while the San Francisco 49ers will travel east.

Bad news, Niners nation. Over the past three decades, heading east has been a death sentence for Super Bowl squads.

Cuda’s research indicated that, since 1994, each westward-bound franchise emerged victorious when facing an opponent that flew east for the big game. It’s happened seven times since 2002. Such a sample size is nothing to scoff at.

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As if Kansas City’s loaded roster of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift wasn’t already enough to get the job done, now the Chiefs have geography in their corner, too.

But wait, there’s more.

Cuda also dove into “lunar analysis” as part of his pregame research, which uncovered another trend that’s sure to make Chiefs fans (and Swifties) smile.

The Super Bowl is set to be played on Feb. 11, when the shining lights of Vegas will be watched over by a bright, waxing crescent moon, similar to that which the fisherman boy floats onto in the Dreamworks Animation logo.

Waxing crescent moons have been extremely kind to Kansas City as of late. In the past five years, the Chiefs are 19-1 in games played when the moon was in that phase, including 4-0 in the postseason.

Kansas City’s only blemish over that span — a 38-20 loss to Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills in October 2021 — can easily be chalked up to random chance, considering the Chiefs have defeated Allen twice in the playoffs since then. You just don’t mess with the moon. Just ask Vector from “Despicable Me.”

So remember, when you’re looking to impress your friends, family and peers with your Super Bowl picks, don’t lean on Mahomes’ ridiculous career postseason numbers or Kyle Shanahan’s past misfortune. Stick to the basics: moon phases and maps.