Fortune plays a larger part than we like to think in sporting success. But luck means nothing if teams don’t have the ability to exploit it. The Roman philosopher Seneca is credited with saying, “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”. In sports, some teams prepare better than others. But some also get more opportunities than others. Luck can take many forms. It can be a fortuitous bounce, particularly with an oblong-ish football that can go any direction after a punt or a fumble hits the ground. It can be an opponent’s baffling, uncharacteristic mistake. And it can be officiating decisions that are 50-50 calls – or just plain wrong.

Consider the Kansas City Chiefs, who are headed to the Super Bowl for a third year in succession. The popular opinion on social media these days is that NFL officials have felt pressure to get Taylor Swift to the Super Bowl; therefore, they give the Chiefs a lot of dubious decisions. That’s a far-fetched conspiracy theory, but it’s hard to deny that the Chiefs have been a rather fortunate team this year. They’ve benefited from close but correct decisions like the pass interference call that set up their game-winning field goal against Cincinnati or the nullified Baltimore touchdown in which Isaiah Likely’s toe was maybe an inch out of bounds. (On the play before that, they were fortunate that Lamar Jackson missed a wide-open Zay Flowers in the end zone.).

Then, in the AFC Championship, referees looked to have botched the spot on a quarterback sneak by Buffalo’s Josh Allen, costing the Bills possession of the ball at a crucial time, and Kansas City’s Xavier Worthy was credited with a catch in a truly benevolent piece of work by the officiating crew. A few bizarre plays went the Chiefs’ way as well. They beat the Raiders when Las Vegas prematurely snapped the ball, leading to a fumble that stopped a potential game-winning drive. They blocked a field goal attempt as time expired to beat the Broncos. Their third-string kicker doinked a field goal through the goalposts as time expired to beat the Chargers.

But the Chiefs aren’t the only team to win several games this year on doinked field goals, last-second plays or inexplicable errors by their opponents. Consider the Washington Commanders. On 27 October, the Chicago Bears had all but finished off the Commanders. The Bears were going to move to 5-2 on the season, gathering momentum for a playoff push with exciting rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. The Commanders were going to fall to 5-3.

Chicago cornerback Tyrique Stevenson was so confident in the win that he turned his back to the snap, taunting Commanders fans as Washington’s own rookie QB, Jayden Daniels, started to scramble and buy time for a Hail Mary. Daniels’ throw landed in a mass of players just short of the goalline. Stevenson out-leaped the crowd and got his hand to the ball, but he only managed to tip it ahead to Washington wide receiver Noah Brown, who barely had to move to make the easy touchdown catch. After the loss, the Bears’ season completely fell apart – they went without a win until the last game of the season to wind up 5-12, changing head coaches along the way.

For the Commanders, this was just one of seven games they won in which they clinched the game in the last six seconds. A walk-off field goal against the Giants. An unsuccessful walk-off two-point conversion by the Saints. Touchdowns in the final seconds against the Eagles and Cowboys. An overtime walk-off touchdown against the Falcons. The most recent was their first playoff game, when Zane Gonzalez’s field-goal attempt doinked off one post and went through as time expired against Tampa Bay. The team’s luck ran out against Philadelphia, when a succession of turnovers and penalties turned a somewhat competitive game into a rout.

Contrast this run of good fortune – and, to be sure, heroic plays – with the misfortune of the Baltimore Ravens. If not for their loss to Kansas City, the Ravens would have hosted their playoff game against the Bills because Baltimore won the head-to-head matchup earlier in the season. Instead, the Ravens traveled to frigid Buffalo. Jackson led the Ravens down the field to score and pull within two points with 1:33 remaining. The two-point conversion was a superbly designed play in which Jackson just needed to complete a simple pass to three-time Pro Bowler Mark Andrews to tie the game.

Nine times out of 10, Andrews catches Jackson’s pass. He had a crucial catch to get the Ravens within range for the touchdown. But not this time. Sports journalists, coaches and authors often write about athletic victories as a triumph of the best over the not-quite-as-good. What’s often left out from such lionizations is a simple fact: Luck matters. As Seneca said, preparation is part of the equation. All the luck in the world wouldn’t have turned this year’s Cleveland Browns or New York Giants into Super Bowl contenders. And after a trouncing of the Commanders, who had knocked out the Detroit Lions, it’s hard to argue that the Philadelphia Eagles aren’t the best team in the NFC and a truly worthy Super Bowl team. The biggest stroke of luck benefiting the Eagles this season was a poor decision within their division, when the New York Giants threw all their money to gaffe-prone quarterback Daniel Jones instead of running back Saquon Barkley, who signed with the Eagles and would surely win this year’s MVP voting if the league wasn’t obsessed with quarterbacks.