Five most exciting games on 2019 Kansas City Chiefs’ schedule
With roughly 11 weeks until the Packers-Bears matchup to start the season, what are the top five games on the Kansas City Chiefs’ schedule in 2019?
The Kansas City Chiefs are one of the most intriguing teams in the NFL in 2019. The Chiefs are tied for the second least players over 30 on their roster and are fresh off a nail-biter of an AFC Championship game against six-time Super Bowl champions Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. With a budding super star at quarterback and a revamped defense, the only direction this team can seemingly go is up.
All these factors have created some lofty expectations for the Chiefs’ 2019 season. In national pundits’ eyes, anything less than at least a trip to the Super Bowl would mark this season as a failure. The same can be said for the team’s fans.
Luckily, there’s a positive reality that says the shoulders of the Chiefs’ team leaders are broad enough and strong enough to bear this burden, the hopes and dreams of a city long forgotten in the view of the national media when it comes to football.
So, let’s take a look at the Chiefs’ schedule and see what games fans should be most excited for leading up to the 2019 season. I’ll admit, there are quite a few.
Honorable Mention – All the AFC West games
None of these games made the list because, to be frank, the Chiefs have absolutely ran the AFC West the last few years winning three straight division titles. The Chiefs’ overall record in the last three years in the division has been 16-2.
If you take into account one of those losses was in the last second to the hapless Raiders after some questionable calls, and the other was after an uncharacteristically anemic second half against the Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium, as a Chiefs’ fan you have to feel pretty confident. It’s an easy argument to make that the Chiefs have absolutely dominated the division and it isn’t close.
Now, unsurprisingly given the coastal bias that seems to pervade the national media at times, some national pundits are still picking the Chargers for what seems like the umpteenth time to win the division. Even more, there’s a shocking fascination with a weathered Joe Flacco in Denver. Based on Broncos’ fans’ sentiment, you might confusingly think that Flacco is the second coming of Peyton Manning in blue and orange. Finally, since Jon Gruden came to Oakland, there hasn’t been a shortage of pundits pontificating on what the coach turned commentator will do next year.
Regardless of the Chiefs’ dominance, these always seem to be close games. This is more because divisional opponents play each other twice a year and from top to bottom there’s rarely considerable turnover across the division in terms of players and coaches than the actual composition of the teams from top to bottom.
Players and coaches in the AFC West are now well aware of Patrick Mahomes and his talents. Not that it will likely make a difference, but it will be interesting to see if the rest of the division is able to take one step closer to the Chiefs or if the opposite happens. Based on most of the developments this offseason, it’s more likely than not that the Chiefs will take another step away from the crowd as they become one of the most consistently dominant teams in the entire AFC.
According to CG Technology’s annual release of game-by-game betting spreads, the Chiefs are favored in every single AFC West game on 2019 schedule. The closest spread is Week 11 against the Los Angeles Chargers in Mexico City, where the Chiefs are favored by 2.5 points, and the largest spread is Week 13 against the Oakland Raiders in Kansas City, where the Chiefs are coincidentally favored by 13 points.