One of the most beautiful things about American football is that there is a defined set of checks and balances that make the standings and playoff picture crystal clear. There is nothing left up to interpretation, no votes cast by biased columnists who are oozing homerism, and no emphasis on how you win. Just continue to add tally marks to the win column and minimize the number of Ls you collect along the way. Teams play on into the postseason based solely on the results that they cultivate on the field of play.
That's a very good thing for the Kansas City Chiefs, who sit at a league-best 12-1 after clinching their 9th consecutive AFC West championship with a win over the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night, for multiple reasons.
First and foremost, the Chiefs are in the driver's seat for the AFC's 1-seed, a spot that will be more crucial than ever for a team that has been banged up in pursuit of a historic Super Bowl 3-peat. If Kansas City goes 3-1 in their last 4 games it does not matter if other teams win out or outscore their competition by 100+ points. The Chiefs will have the top seed and the AFC playoffs will again come through Arrowhead Stadium this coming January.
It's also a very good thing because wins and losses are ultimately what defines success in the NFL as opposed to, say, college football. If the roles (or processes) were reversed, how would we perceive this year's Chiefs team? It almost certainly wouldn't be as the class of the AFC and arguably the NFL as their record would indicate. If the fate of NFL teams was left up to the opinions of columnists and talking heads—or even a committee of a combination of these people coupled with former coaches and front-office personnel like the College Football Playoff committee—the Chiefs would be facing a much tougher road ahead than what a 3-1 finish would guarantee them.
Why are the Chiefs getting the mid-major treatment in the court of NFL public opinion?
The court of public opinion on the Chiefs in 2024 is that they are less impressive this season than other teams because they haven't flexed their muscles on any of their opponents—yet. With games against the lowly Saints, Panthers, and Raiders, to name a few, surely there should have been some 40-point outbursts from Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs' offense coupled with a near-shutout cooked up by defensive grillmaster Steve Spagnuolo, right? Wrong. The Chiefs have only had three games decided by more than one score—wins over the Saints (26-13) and 49ers (28-18) and a loss to the Bills (30-21). Everything else has been airtight, whether they're 10-0 in those games or not.
So how would we rank teams in the NFL in a college football-esque model? Look no further than the flood of weekly NFL Power Rankings you see on your social feed every Tuesday morning. I aggregated the results of last week's power rankings from 12 major outlets for this exercise. None of them had the Chiefs as the top-ranked team in the NFL—okay, fine. Let the Detroit Lions sit on that distinction for now. But no one had Kansas City higher than 3. Two publications had them as low as 6. The average here was 4.25, so at best a second seed on either side of the NFL playoff bracket which would mean playing during Wild Card weekend and having to potentially go on the road for the AFC Championship. An alternate reality that many somehow consider rooted in reality.
But why are the Chiefs getting this mid-major treatment from the national media when they are a returning powerhouse who, for the first time in a long time, are dominating a powerhouse division? Think of the divisions in the NFL in terms of conferences in college football for a second. Most would concede that the NFC North, sporting the Lions, Packers, and Vikings with a combined 32 wins, might be the best division in football in 2024. Fine. The AFC West is more than likely going to land just as many teams in the playoffs this season. The Chargers and Broncos both sit at 8-5 and would both be in if the season ended today.
All the Chiefs have done in that division so far is go 5-0 with one potentially meaningless game left against the Broncos in Week 18. Did they do it in style? No. But for the ninth consecutive season, the Chiefs have conquered the AFC West all while being the second team in the league to clinch (behind Buffalo whose division rivals' win totals combined match the Chiefs' win total this year) and having a two-game lead in the AFC heading into the league's final four contests.
Are you telling me the Big 10 champ, who was undefeated in conference play but maybe lost to the ACC champ in a road non-conference game, would be on the four-line in the college football playoff? The Chiefs' reputation in 2024 is being treated more like that of a Boise State than it does a team like Oregon or Ohio State.
Strength of schedule is a big term that gets thrown around in college football, so let's try that hat on here. The Bills are a good comparison point here. Surely they've got more impressive wins over better teams than the Chiefs, right? Well, maybe. The Chiefs have played 7 games against teams who will be in or will be just on the outside looking in at the playoff picture this year, and they are 6-1 in those games. The Bills have played 8 and are 5-3, with two of those being wins against mostly Tua-less Dolphins teams.
The Lions' best wins so far are inter-divisional ones against the Packers and Vikings, who have been extremely competitive in 2024. But let's be real: if the Chiefs find themselves in a Super Bowl matchup somehow against Jordan Love or Sam Darnold, are any of you even remotely worried about how that game is going to go? Detroit's roster is loaded and even the biggest Chiefs homer would admit that a Super Bowl matchup with the Lions would induce at least a little anxiety. However, deep down you'd know what was going to happen, right?
The point of all of this is not to draw grand comparisons and beat a dead horse, which I've kind of already done here. The point is that in today's world, it would appear that winning the games on your schedule is no longer enough to be considered elite—even when you've scaled football's highest peak in three of the last five seasons, including the last two consecutively. A team that should have unparalleled respect and the benefit of the doubt is somehow being doubted once again.
But while people will continue to doubt, my money would be on the Chiefs continuing to prove it over and over again as they have been. Teams like the Lions and Bills can stack up their regular season blowouts all they want. When push comes to shove and heavyweights are punching each other in the mouth in January, the Chiefs will be the one contender who knows how to win ugly and win close. One day a team will take them down in the playoffs and the run will be halted or stopped for good, but that day has not come yet.
To channel Mitch Holthus's famous call from the 2022 AFC Championship game, you can doubt the Chiefs. You can dislike the Chiefs. You can disrespect the Chiefs. But the entire league is inevitably going to have to deal with the Chiefs, and it will more than likely be on the Chiefs' terms (home-field advantage) on the terrain they're more familiar with than anyone else.