The NFL's marketing team is a historically prolific unit. Much akin to the "Got Milk?" people from the '90s and the Sterling Cooper-esque ad men of the 1950s and '60s, they know how to take anything and make it into a spectacle, something you crave. The NFL Draft has become one of the most-watched sporting events in the U.S., with millions tuning in to watch kids born in the 2000s become instant millionaires—many now just stacking onto the millions they made from NIL deals with car dealers and gambling apps in college. The same can be said about the schedule release, which has become the NFL's third pillar of offseason productions.Â
Naturally, as the full schedules drop after weeks of leaks that give us breadcrumbs to certain primetime and holiday affairs, we the fans flock to our respective devices and do our best to put our fingers into the proverbial football winds and try to predict the outcome of each of our team's 17 attempts to conquer the rest of the league. At a certain point, every team can be 11-6 and either on the cusp of winning its division or breaking through for a wild card berth. Some are more delusional and are near locks in their fans' eyes to be 14-3 world beaters who march to the Super Bowl nearly unharmed.Â
The truth is no one knows what will actually unfold on the field. Between now and the start of the season, things will happen. Good things and bad things. Players who are injured will find themselves healthy faster than they expected. Players who are healthy will find themselves injured. More free agents will find homes, unexpected cuts will be made, all kinds of things will happen. So the team you're projecting to win 14 games now might look a touch different by Week 1, and will almost certainly look different by Week 8 when your predicted 7-1 start has gone off the rails with a team that finds itself at 3-5. It happens.Â
Those things are uncontrollable. What happens on the field with the players who do make it through to the regular season is also out of our control, as it all rests in the hands of the players and coaches who are making the aforementioned millions of dollars to strategize and compete on the playing field. But what if we looked at the schedule through a football-adjacent lens rather than a strictly football lens? I was once told by a wise man that football is less about X's and O's than it is about Jimmy's and Joe's, and that doesn't really apply here at all, but I'm about to hit you with some compelling points as to why our Chiefs can go through the regular season untouched in 2026.Â
Week 1: Denver Broncos
Broncos fans are seemingly hoisting a Lombardi Trophy that won't be presented until February of 2027 in May of 2026. One taste of success has a Johnny-come-lately fanbase salivating over the prospect of a 30-something third-year quarterback being the newfound king of an already claimed division. Humble pie will be served by the real king (Patrick Mahomes) or his squire (Justin Fields) in Week 1, and the universe's self-correcting nature will be felt across the football landscape.Â
Week 2: Indianapolis Colts
Back-to-back home games, primetime nonetheless, to start the year. Daniel Dimes (Jones) has the intimidation factor of a basset hound rolling over to kindly ask for a belly rub. Do we truly believe a quarterback with that type of dopey lovability is going to come into Arrowhead Stadium and be able to function under the lights with 77,000-plus people with a collective BAC over 0.04 shouting varying levels of harassing things at him? 2-0, we move on.Â
Week 3: at Miami Dolphins
The Chiefs could start 21 out of 22 starters and throw Garrett Nussmeier on the field and still beat the Chernobyl-level nuclear rebuild of a team the Dolphins will field in 2026.Â
Week 4: at Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders have "nice-guy'd" themselves into a tough position in 2026. Will Kirk Cousins or Fernando Mendoza, either one, be able to actually ruin someone else's Sunday—the Lord's Day, mind you—and win football games? I was always taught to turn the other cheek, as were Kirk and Ferd, so I'd imagine this one will be a pleasant handshake, a "bless you, have a good day," and an easy win for the Chiefs.Â
Week 6: Los Angeles Chargers
By the time Week 6 rolls around, the Chargers may be in shambles. Maybe or maybe not from an injury standpoint, as we've become accustomed to. I'm talking about a battle of pants theologies. Newly minted offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel is a notorious wearer of joggers, whereas Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh is more of a classic Van Heusen slacks kind of guy. The ankle visibility McDaniel displays is sure to cause a rift in Chargers offensive meetings, leading to L.A.'s second-favorite sons laying an egg against a well-rested Chiefs team coming off a bye.Â
Week 7: at Seattle Seahawks
Revenge games are real. The Week 7 affair in Seattle will, without question, leave the 12s sleepless in the days leading up to and immediately following Kenneth Walker's opportunity for retribution. Who lets a Super Bowl MVP just walk out the door after reaching the mountaintop? Certainly not the Chiefs, who are well chronicled as leading the league in rostered Super Bowl MVPs.Â
Week 8: at Denver Broncos
The Broncos used to have some pretty notorious Halloween parties when Von Miller was in town. It has been nearly 10 years since one of them gained major notoriety after Chad "Swag" Kelly found himself being beaten by a vacuum tube while drunkenly attempting to crash on a stranger's couch after the 2018 Von Miller spooktacular. Is it likely that Nik Bonitto is carrying the pass-rusher Halloween party torch now and Bo Nix finds himself in a suburban Denver row of hedges with a traffic cone on his head the night before this Week 8 matchup? No. Is it possible? You bet. That, or the game is forfeited because Sean Payton has greenlit production on another movie about himself.Â
Week 9: New York Jets
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani was recently likened to "The Godfather" for a video he posted in front of a billionaire's residence in NYC making a case for increased taxes on the city's wealthiest people. But those who are really in the know understand that the actual mafia that runs NYC now is not led by Mamdani, it's led by the soon-to-be Mrs. Kelce. The power of Taylor will compel as her home away from home prevails over her permanent residence. We did not request or receive comment from Taylor regarding her opinions on the new NYC tax policies—nothing to report.Â
Week 10: at Atlanta Falcons
I dug deep on this one. Deeper than most of the other 16 games on the schedule. I had my doubts—could this be a trap game in the birthplace of trap music? Could the Falcons finally have so many offensive weapons that Michael Penix has no choice but to be a competent NFL quarterback? Then it hit me. 2026 is the 10th anniversary of one of the most electrifying plays in modern Chiefs history: the Eric Berry "Pick 2" in a 29-28 win over the Falcons in Atlanta. That type of anniversary-centric voodoo magic is insurmountable.Â
Week 11: Arizona Cardinals
This one will simply come down to the fact that the Cardinals only employ backup quarterbacks. Jacoby Brissett is holding out but will likely be on the team come September. Gardner Minshew is the man but we've been there and done that, and I can't imagine the prospect of Carson Beck has any of the dozens of Cardinals fans too optimistic. This goes against my original thesis that my reasoning—Â
Week 12: at Buffalo Bills
We all know the stigma: the Bills own the Chiefs in the regular season, but the Chiefs always get the Bills when it counts. That has held true in recent years, but things are circumstantially different this year.Â
First, there is a 0.0 percent chance that Andy Reid loses a football game on an eating-centric holiday to an opposing coach with a haircut as bad as Joe Brady's. Second, old Highmark Stadium is a thing of the past. The Chiefs are poised to plant their flag in New Highmark as its most dominant tenants, much like they have at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The days of Bills regular-season domination are over, but fear not—the playoff script will remain the same.Â
Week 13: at Los Angeles Rams
I've long dreamt of a scenario where somehow, some way, the decline of Matthew Stafford lines up perfectly with the end of Andy Reid's career. Stafford is without question closer to the end than he is the beginning of his Hall of Fame career, and once that's over, what's next for Sean McVay and the Rams? The logical answer would be Ty Simpson now, but what if Dan Orlovsky is wrong and Simpson sucks?Â
This game is a logical step one in my dream process. A revamped Chiefs front mollywhops Stafford into retirement, Simpson ends up being Mac Jones 2.0, and in a few years the Rams are a bottom-feeding franchise, and McVay is looking for an out. Andy Reid decides it's time to hang them up, and we get to see McVay succeed Reid in K.C. Who says no?Â
Week 14: at Cincinnati Bengals
Bengals fans cooked their own goose with the inordinate amount of nonsense they spewed about their team being the cocks of the AFC walk before they had even officially arrived. Since their meager 2021 Super Bowl appearance, they have lost to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship in 2022 and have been a no-show ever since. Wins over the Jake Browning-led Bengals have done little to bolster the confidence of the Chiefs or their fans and have subsequently not warranted much return fire from a fanbase that could easily say, "I told you so." Time marches on, and little brother will always be little brother.Â
Week 15: New England Patriots
Distraction is a powerful thing. Many teams deal with varying types of distractions throughout the course of the season—off-the-field issues, legal matters, injuries, suspensions, etc. The Patriots have a few of their own this offseason. The Chiefs should lean into this to mentally cripple the defending AFC champs. And what better way than to have a very special guest as the drum deck honoree on Monday Night Football? Give Dianna Russini the mallet and let the games begin.Â
Week 16: San Francisco 49ers
While there are no electrical substations near Arrowhead Stadium (that I'm aware of), the one in San Francisco near the 49ers facility should have done its work well enough by late December to weaken enough ligaments on the 49ers roster for the Chiefs to welcome a skeleton crew to town. There may be more USFL call-ups on the Niners at this point in the year than guys who began the year on their 53-man roster. And hopefully an appearance from a now-homeless-looking Todd Haley.Â
Week 17: at Los Angeles Chargers
A temporary ceasefire in Joggergate has allowed the Chargers to climb back toward the top of the standings at this point in the season. The Chargers and Chiefs are both in the running for a high seed in the AFC playoffs, as well as in contention for the AFC West. But only fresh laundry folds faster than Justin Herbert in a late-season impactful game against the Chiefs.Â
Week 18: Las Vegas Raiders
All right, if the Chiefs are actually 16-0, then the chances of the Raiders winning this one might be decent, considering K.C. will be resting everyone. Still, Justin Fields and company could make easy work of a Raiders team that has become one of the biggest jokes in the league. Ultimately, this one will be about as significant a game as the Raiders are a franchise.
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