NFL power rankings: Kansas City Chiefs remain outside league’s elite teams

The latest round of NFL Power Rankings are out ahead of Week 10 and the Kansas City Chiefs remain outside of the top tier of teams.

The latest round of NFL power rankings are out ahead of Week 10 and the Kansas City Chiefs have a fairly wide spectrum of of opinions about their readiness to compete for Super Bowl.

Some places still have the Chiefs firmly entrenched as a top tier team undone by recent injuries, especially to that of Patrick Mahomes. Others have allowed the Chiefs to tumble in the rankings, a team with myriad issues that were exposed earlier in the season.

Let’s look at the latest round of rankings. Over at ESPN, Adam Teicher has the Chiefs ranked No. 5 overall. That’s the same as last week despite toppling the impressive Minnesota Vikings in Week 9.

Dan Hanzus at NFL.com has the Chiefs sitting all the way at No. 8, taking a single step up after picking up their sixth victory on Sunday. He writes:

"Beating the Vikings was important for the Chiefs, who, after falling to Green Bay in Week 8, had to find a way to win one of these games with Patrick Mahomes sidelined.”"

Eighth place is also familiar to the Chiefs over at NBC Sports where Scott Bair was in charge of the rankings. He’s got the Chiefs at No. 8. Right now it’s interesting to see he has the Patriots, Ravens and the Texans ranked ahead of the Chiefs in the AFC. The Chiefs beat the Ravens but lost to the Texans and will face the Pats in a few weeks.

At Sports Illustrated, where there’s a panel involved with some transparency in the process, it’s easy to see the ceiling and floor of voters. The Chiefs landed at No. 5 overall, but a handful of voters put them at No. 4 while one voter ranked them as low as No. 7. Clearly the whole panel of experts at SI think more highly of K.C. than other outlets.

Then again, everyone thinks better of the Chiefs compared to Pete Prisco at CBS Sports. Last week he had them at No. 15 overall after the loss to the Green Bay Packers. This week they jumped five spots to No. 10, still far behind where others have them. Prisco clearly doesn’t believe in this team’s Super Bowl potential.