The five biggest down-the-stretch challenges facing the Kansas City Chiefs

3. Well-rested opponents

The great Warren Sharp (who should be a must-follow for everyone on social media by now) put out his schedule analysis before the season began and came up with the following nugget heading into the regular season.

Sharp goes on to point out the details:

1. Week 12: Chiefs face Raiders after MNF (shorter week)
2. Week 13: Packers have 10 days of rest
3. Week 14: Bills are coming off a bye week
4. Week 15: Patriots have 10 days of rest
5. Week 16: Raiders have 10 days of rest
6. Week 17: Bengals have 2 more days of rest than KC

You can dive into the details yourself by looking at the schedule, but as Sharp summarizes, "The Chiefs will be -20 in net rest from Week 12 through the end of the season."

We've already discussed how important (and how difficult) it can be to stay healthy, but this makes it even harder for a team to overcome the challenges of avoiding injuries and general readiness. This is frustrating when so much is already out of a team's control. For the Chiefs, however, there's no way around it. They just have to go through it.