The Kansas City Chiefs have secured the No. 2 spot in the AFC with the Tennessee Titans‘ win over the Houston Texans in Week 18.
The Chiefs were holding out slim hopes that the 4-12 Texans could somehow complete a season sweep of the Titans in the AFC South—yes, they’d already beaten them once before—but the Titans knew what was at stake and showed up ready to play with a decisive victory to claim the lone bye in the conference.
In Week 18, the Titans went to work early against the Texans pass defense as Ryan Tannehill enjoyed a banner day with three first-half touchdowns to put them up by 21. However, Davis Mills and the Texans came back and made a tight game of it in the fourth quarter. However, the Titans did enough to ultimately move past the rival challenge for a 28-25 victory.
The Chiefs are now officially sitting in the AFC’s No. 2 seed.
The Chiefs once held the No. 1 overall seed for about a week after winning eight games in a row and watching the rest of the AFC stumble over themselves to give the coveted position to the upstart Chiefs with bad wins (such as the Titans losing to the Texans and Jets). Yet by the time the Chiefs finally reclaimed the territory lost during the slow start of the season.
At this point, the Chiefs are still waiting to see who they will face in the Wild Card round, but they do know they will have to gear up again in a week’s time and play after watching their slim hopes of resting for a week slip away.
More details to come as the rest of the scheduled games for Week 18 play out.