Relax, Chiefs fans: It’s just one game

If you hadn’t guessed, today’s headline is pure clickbait. I make no apologies about it. This is the sentiment I’ve seen expressed since Sunday’s 19-17 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What’s the big deal? Sometimes, an NFL team drops a game they’re favored to win. As a fan of the game for the past 30 years, I understand that as well as anyone.

Be clear: The Kansas City Chiefs are 7-3. That’s four games above .500 with six games to play in the regular season. They could probably split their final six games and still make the postseason. They’ve done enough work that qualifying for the NFL playoffs is practically a formality. Is that all Chiefs Kingdom wants, though — to make the postseason?

Your concerns about the Kansas City Chiefs are legitimate — whatever they are. A five-game win streak masks a team’s warts. It’s never “just one game.” At least not at this point in the season. The Chiefs began the day as the No. 2 seed in the AFC. Today, they’re the top wildcard in the conference. If the regular season ended today (we all know it doesn’t, but follow me) Kansas City would travel to Baltimore in the first round of the playoffs. That’s a winnable game.

In fact, it’s one I’d expect the Chiefs to win. Should they clear the first postseason hurdle, in all likelihood, they’d draw New England again in the divisional round.

There are reasons to think a healthy Chiefs team would have a puncher’s chance this time around. Though, I doubt anyone feels confident they could win, on the road, with the anemic offense they’ve trotted onto the field the past few weeks. It matters where that game is played. Sunday was a missed opportunity to stay in control of their own postseason destiny. They’ll still get a crack — three of them, in fact — at two of the conference’s best teams.

This race is far from over, but Tampa Bay was one of the softest games remaining on Kansas City’s schedule. You can’t lose that game, at home, at this point in the season. Not against the league’s 26th-ranked defense and not when your defense surrenders fewer than 20 points sans multiple starters.