NFL Picks, Week 4: Kansas City Chiefs favored to stay undefeated
By Jacob Harris
The Kansas City Chiefs are predicted by most experts to defeat the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football despite the game being at Mile High.
After three straight wins featuring a quarterback off to arguably the greatest start in the history of the NFL, the buzz surrounding the Kansas City Chiefs inside and outside of K.C. is perhaps the strongest it’s ever been.
Patrick Mahomes’ brilliant play has catapulted the Chiefs into the national media limelight in a way no player has since Joe Montana. It’s no longer a narrative of “Ok, they’re good, but they’re just batting practice for the other playoff teams.”. This is legitimate intrigue. This is the sports world starting to believe the perpetual not-good-enoughs just got good enough.
Monday night will be a big “prove it” moment for the Chiefs. It’s Mahomes’ first game on primetime national television. While not what they were a few years ago, and certainly not playing up to expectations yet this year, the Denver Broncos’ defense is still formidable and are the strongest group the Chiefs have come up against this season. And the game is on the road. So it’s a strong indicator of the trajectory these two teams are on that the experts across sports media are so strongly favoring the Chiefs.
80% of the ESPN panel sees the Chiefs beating the Broncos Monday night, with Molly Qerim and Seth Wickersham the lone experts picking the Broncos.
Over at CBS the only expert of their eight who don’t like the Chiefs this week is Pete Prisco.
FiveThirtyEight’s model gives the Chiefs a 65% win probability, making them one of their stronger favorites this week. FiveThirtyEight also has the Chiefs as their current favorites to win the Super Bowl at 14%. Yes, it’s early, but that doesn’t make it not fun.
At this point the Chiefs should be favorites in the majority of their games going forward. Barring a collapse of epic proportions (which, granted, would be a very Chiefs thing to happen), this offense should simply be too much for most of the league to handle. Then again, last week the Bills destroyed the Vikings and Lions made the Patriots look silly. It’s the NFL, and it’s a cliche but it’s true; anything can happen.
Next. Chiefs vs. Broncos: Latest odds and betting lines. dark
But the Chiefs are gonna win on Monday. For sure.