It’s been a wild NFL season thus far, and the Kansas City Chiefs are a near-perfect representation of that. The reigning AFC champions find themselves sitting at 5-4 on the year, which puts them outside the conference playoff picture entering Week 11.
Andy Reid’s team, by many metrics, is a better unit than the one that went 15-2 just a season ago. With margins in football being razor-thin and quality processes not always leading to the same results, though, this is where Kansas City stands.
With the Chiefs returning from their bye, can they dig themselves out of their current hole? In a November 11 story for NFL, Ali Bhanpuri made a bold claim in regards to that.
Analyst Predicts Chiefs Will Run the Table After Bye Week
Bhanpuri not only believes the Chiefs will win the AFC West, but they’ll do so by winning every game the rest of the way.
“Despite entering Week 11 three wins shy of the Broncos’ total and sitting third in the division, Kansas City stacks enough victories down the stretch — including both tilts with Denver — to capture its 10th consecutive AFC West title,” Bhanpuri wrote.
That would certainly be a feat. Perhaps even more alarming is that before the season, Bhanpuri predicted the Chiefs would go 5-3 post-bye. A barely-over-.500 start to this season inspired little confidence in many, but he appears to be the exception.
Here’s Kansas City’s remaining schedule following Sunday’s Week 11 contest against the Denver Broncos:
- Week 12: vs. Indianapolis Colts
- Week 13: at Dallas Cowboys
- Week 14: vs. Houston Texans
- Week 15: vs. Los Angeles Chargers
- Week 16: at Tennessee Titans
- Week 17: vs. Broncos
- Week 18: at Las Vegas Raiders
Considering the Chargers and Broncos already have either leads, head-to-head tiebreakers or both over Kansas City, winning out would be a huge help. That’s without even factoring in direct losses to the Buffalo Bills (Week 9) and Jacksonville Jaguars (Week 5), both of whom are above them in the conference standings.
Such a run would be similar to the 2021-22 Chiefs, who were 3-4 at one point but went on to win nine of 10 remaining games.
Andy Reid Not Worried About Kansas City’s Urgency Down the Stretch
In many ways, the Chiefs have been their own worst enemies this year. Three of their four defeats can be traced back to circumstances like injuries or uncharacteristic mistakes. For a franchise that went undefeated in one-score games a year ago, it’s definitely a change of pace (and scenery).
Speaking to the media on Monday, Reid explained where his team’s mind is at coming out of the bye.
“Well yeah, Soren [Petro], you know in this league every game is important,” Reid said. “You’ve got to stay focused on that, and it doesn’t matter what you project or what has happened before. You learn from your past and take care of what’s going on today. We’ll get the players back tomorrow, and then we’re all in on Denver, so that’s kind of where we’re at. Is there an urgency? There should be an urgency every week. That’s how this league is — there’s too much parity in this league not to have urgency every week.”
Despite some concentration lapses earlier in the season, Reid doesn’t think it’s an issue moving forward.
“That’s not how I feel,” Reid said. “I feel like the guys have got good energy. We just need to clean a couple of things up, and we’ll be OK there.”
For the Chiefs’ sake, they’ll hope Reid’s assessment — or even Bhanpuri’s — turns out to be true.
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