NFL Power Rankings, Week 8: Chiefs sit behind Eagles, Bills

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Kansas City Chiefs are the third-best team in the league, according to the latest NFL power rankings. If this sounds like a broken record, that’s because they have maintained pretty much the same spot for the entire season.

Except for a brief fall from grace after their two losses, the Chiefs have been seen as pretty consistent in  almost every media source. They are consistently ranked behind the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles in almost every poll.

I can understand being behind the Buffalo Bills. They look great. They even beat the Chiefs, and have one less loss, so until proven otherwise I can agree with that ranking.

What I still don’t get is how the Chiefs are behind the Eagles. This almost certainly has to do with record bias. As that old saying goes, “You are what your record says you are.” Apparently, that means that at 6-0 the Eagles are the best team.

But I doubt it. The Eagles have been good, don’t get me wrong. But are you really going to take Jalen Hurts over Patrick Mahomes in a head-to-head matchup? I don’t think so.

Universally, everyone is respecting the Chiefs’ offense though, especially after they butchered the San Francisco 49ers top-ranked defense.

NFL.com had this interesting statistic: the Chiefs have more ‘chunk’ plays (25+ yard or more) at this time than they did last year. As Dan Hanzus notes, “The Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill away and got more explosive. Go figure.”

Yahoo! Sports pointed out that Patrick Mahomes hit 8 different receivers, and 3 of them had at least 98 yards. If that stat sounds a little misleading, that’s because JuJu Smith Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling both had over 100 yards (the first time the Chiefs have had that happen in a long time), and Travis Kelce came up two yards short of his 32nd career 100-yard game. I’m still annoyed about it. 

PFT and CBS also praised the Chiefs’ offense, and according to Pete Prisco (CBS), “The offense is back in a big way.” Mike Florio (PFT) noted, “When you can put 44 points on one of the best defenses in football, you’re doing something right.”

I have to agree. Now just give me the Chiefs and Eagles in the Super Bowl (we’ll call it the Andy Reid Bowl) so we can prove once and for all that the Chiefs are better than the Eagles.