ESPN gives Kansas City Chiefs best chance to win Super Bowl
By Matt Conner
According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, the Kansas City Chiefs are not only the best overall team in the NFL but they’re given the best chance to win the Super Bowl in 2019.
If ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) is to be believed, this is the year for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Forty-nine years have come and gone since the Chiefs were last in the Super Bowl, but given their mix of talent on both sides of the ball, the presence of Patrick Mahomes under center, and the coaching acumen of Andy Reid, this might just be the year the Chiefs put all kinds of old ghosts to rest.
ESPN released their FPI rankings and subsequent projections on Thursday, and the Chiefs are the highest ranked team in the NFL. This means that ESPN’s rankings believe that the Chiefs have the most overall talent on both sides of the ball (and special teams). They also give the Chiefs the highest percentage chance of winning the Super Bowl at 16 percent overall.
We will let the folks at ESPN explain a bit more about FPI:
"ESPN’s NFL Football Power Index (FPI) is a prediction system for the NFL developed by ESPN’s Analytics Team. Each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predicted offensive, defensive and special teams efficiency, as measured by expected points added per play, and that rating is the basis for FPI’s game-level and season-level projections."
While no rating system is perfect and games have to actually be played on the field, it’s hard to not read the results here and feel good about the Chiefs chances. Yes the Chiefs have their question marks on the roster, but Brett Veach is hardly done making waves and he’s got plenty of money to do something with as cap casualties come into play. He could also wait until the trade deadline nears to see just how real the roster concerns are.
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As of now, the Chiefs are being given an 80 percent chance of making the postseason and a 65 percent chance of winning their fourth straight AFC West title, a run of dominance the team has never seen. The Chiefs win total is expected to be 10.3 this season and only four teams are in double-digits. The Chiefs are the highest with the Patriots, Rams and Saints all right there with them.