The biggest questions surrounding KC Chiefs at midseason
By Matt Conner
The question of competition
For all the momentum felt by Chiefs Kingdom after Week 10, the truth is that the streak of consecutive victories has come against some questionable competition. That was also the consideration even when the Chiefs were sitting below .500.
To date, the Chiefs have beaten up on underwhelming foes from the NFC along with a season-opening win over the Cleveland Browns. They took out the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 4 and the Washington Football Team in Week 6. Then came the current three-game win streak that featured the New York Giants, the Green Bay Packers, and the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Packers game is the signature win for the team in a 13-7 battle at Arrowhead, but when a team doesn’t have the reigning MVP at quarterback, it removes the sheen from it all. It also doesn’t help that the Chiefs squeaked by in that game.
As for the Raiders, they were a division-leading team, to be sure, but they’re also employing an interim head coach and trying to keep themselves focused in a season in which they’ve released two players for dangerous or reckless behavior to along with GrudenGate. The Raiders had a winning record when the Chiefs faced them, but they’d also just lost to the Giants and we might look back and realize the wheels were completely coming off at the time the Chiefs faced them (and fleeced them) in primetime.
Then again, the entire NFL is without a clearly elite team at this point. Every team has lost two games, and the best team in the AFC record-wise also lost their best player for the entire season in Derrick Henry. Parity is alive and well and the Chiefs should be thankful for it (or maybe they’re a victim of it, too).
Still, for some analysts and fans with their brows furrowed even after Week 10, they will likely need to see them take out the Dallas Cowboys at Arrowhead in order to buy into the team’s legitimacy. Not everyone is this way, but there are still enough questions about the level of competition that need to be answered. A win over Dak Prescott and company would go a long way toward buying in.