Two years ago, I wrote about how the Patriots under Tom Brady were on a remarkable streak. At the time, the Patriots had been favored in 33 consecutive games where Brady was the starting quarterback (during his suspension during DeflateGate, New England was a 9-point underdog against the Cardinals in a game Jimmy Garoppolo started, and a pick’em in a game against the Texans that Jacoby Brissett started; New England won both games).

Since I wrote that article, the Patriots were favored in all 19 games in 2017, and in all 17 games so far during the 2018 season. That brings the total up to an absurd 69 consecutive games that the Patriots have been favored in when Brady is the starting quarterback. And 70 games ago was Super Bowl XLIX, when the Patriots and Seahawks game was a pick’em. That means you have to go back to a game against the Packers in November 2014 to find the last time Brady took the field in a game the Patriots were underdogs.

The graph below shows every Patriots regular (in blue) and playoff (in red) game since 2010.  The non-Brady games at the start of the 2015 season are shown in black circles.  Since point spreads are typically displayed like “Patriots -7”, the Y-Axis shows the point spread but in reverse order (so the Patriots mostly occupy the top half of the graph).  The X-Axis shows the year.

But the 2018 AFC Championship Game may change things. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs were only 3.5-point underdogs when Kansas City traveled to Foxboro during the regular season. The Chiefs have opened as 3-point favorites, and it seems very likely that this long streak will end when Brady takes the field on Sunday. But that doesn’t make it any less remarkable: by way of comparison, the Alabama Crimson Tide were favored in 72 straight games from 2010 to 2015. And, you know, this is the NFL.

Brady has now been favored in 249 games, which translates to 82% of the time his team took the field.