Labeling a 13-1 NFL team as lucky seems a bit partisan.

Through Week 15, Kansas City had been triumphant in an NFL-record 15 consecutive games that were decided by one score, including a 19-17 last-second heartstopper over the Los Angeles Chargers in which the winning field goal first bounced off the left upright.

Advancing a popular theme, AthlonSports.com’s Richie Whitt wrote, “It’s been a season accented with luck for the Chiefs, from Week 1’s escape over the Baltimore Ravens by a toenail to Black Friday’s win when the Las Vegas Raiders fumbled away a chance at a game-winning field goal in the final seconds.”

Contrary to sentiments expressed during good times and bad, there is no such thing as luck in sports.

The lucky bounce, the lucky shot, the lucky catch?

They’re all products of skill, experience, fortuitous positioning and maybe some good fortune.

But luck?

No.

Describing an action or reaction in athletic competition as lucky is something that kids do when they are on the wrong side of an outcome.

Near half-court attempts by Steph Curry and Caitlin Clark that sail through the basket are not lucky shots. They result from magnificent hand-eye coordination, the split-second assessment of distance and direction and the agility to evade defensive pressure.

Referring to something that happens in a sporting contest as lucky is borderline condescending and insulting.

Luck has about as much influence on the outcome of a sporting event as superstitious ritual.

Daily sports highlights, particularly the Top-10 variety, nearly always are packaged around plays that might be described as lucky but are actually impressive displays of athletic talent.

The word luck is used so freely in sports that participants offer it in greetings before a contest.

At every level of sports, officials, coaches and athletes wish one another “Good luck,” which is simply a verbal form of encouragement and sign of good sportsmanship.

Society has made it so acceptable to throw the word luck around that even athletes credit it for successful results.

After the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the New York Islanders in a playoff series-clincher this past May, defenseman Brady Skjei said, “Those lucky bounces went our way.”

In the third period of a 6-3 win, Carolina had scored two goals eight seconds apart, which are the fastest two goals in a playoff game in franchise history.

One goal resulted from a deflection that New York failed to clear from their zone and the other was produced by a bounce off the side boards that caromed to the Islanders’ net.

Luck seems unworthy of recognition when athletes with superior training and remarkable talents are the originators of cause-and-effect actions.

The punt that rolls to a stop at the 1-yard-line, the baseball that ricochets off the foul pole for a home run and the golf ball that bounces and then rolls into the cup for a hole-in-one are all manifestations of hard work, concentrated effort and athleticism.

Following Kansas City’s win over the Chargers, Jesse Newell of The Kansas City Star captured the essence of the Chiefs’ season without diminishing the team’s central role in shaping its destiny.

“The Kansas City Chiefs lived their same charmed life Sunday night — while somehow finding a new ridiculous way to win one in the end,” he wrote.

Luck was left uncredited.

As it should be.

Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.