AFC Botched Its Best Chance to Dethrone Inevitable KC Chiefs

Even in a perceived down year for KC, the AFC's game of musical chairs once again ends with only the Chiefs having a seat.

Remember those Tom Brady-era New England Patriots teams? The ones that, even in what most would call a "down" year, were still somehow held to the expectation of a deep playoff run and a chance to get to the Super Bowl? The ones that brought tremendous stability? The ones that seemed inevitable?

The Kansas City Chiefs have a long way to go if they want to match the sustained success of those squads, but they're building one hell of a case as a more modern version of those Patriots.

This Kansas City team, led by the all-important core of Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, started the season 6-1. That same team, however, proceeded to drop five of its next eight games and fall to 9-6 with an embarrassing Christmas Day loss to the Las Vegas Raiders that put its weaknesses on full display. This season, the Chiefs ranked second in scoring on defense but were a pedestrian 15th on offense. Penalties, dropped passes, turnovers, personnel and scheme questions led many to believe that this year simply wasn't the one for Patrick Mahomes and company.

Heck, the Chiefs even spotted two teams with higher seeds than them in the conference playoffs. They went on the road and were underdogs in two of their three postseason meetings. The door was left wide open for someone else to run through it, mostly due to the perception of Kansas City's mortality. 

In the end, it didn't matter. With the Super Bowl LVIII matchup set, the AFC's representative is the Chiefs for the fourth time in five years. 

The craziest part? Mahomes and Co. dispatched each of their eligible top contenders en route to solidifying their spot in the big game. In the process, they sent those three franchises back to the drawing board with huge offseasons ahead.

On Wild Card Weekend, Kansas City hosted the Miami Dolphins. Mike McDaniel's league-leading offense was supposed to have the advantage over Steve Spagnuolo's tremendous defense. Miami, coming off as anything but afraid to play in the cold, froze in the bitter conditions at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs won by 19 points and advanced, with the Dolphins heading back to South Beach with very little salary cap space and free agents like Christian Wilkins and multiple offensive linemen hitting free agency. Oh yeah, their quarterback also posted a 63.9 passer rating in his first real chance to prove himself in a pressure-cooker environment.

In the Divisional Round, Mahomes went on the road for an AFC playoff game for the first time and was a multi-point underdog. Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills awaited and gave the visitors a fight, but the game ended in a familiar fashion. Buffalo averaged 3.6 yards per play and scored just seven points in the second half, suffering a minor implosion down the stretch. For the third time, Allen couldn't get over the hump versus the Chiefs in the playoffs. The Bills now enter the offseason losing their offensive coordinator (after firing their original one) with a roster aging in places and Allen's cap hit rising from $18.6 million to $47.1M. 

Sunday was another road playoff game for the Chiefs and a second-straight underdog outing. Lamar Jackson, the likely 2023-24 NFL MVP, played like anything but that. Kansas City got shut out in the second half of play and still won by a touchdown against a team that ranked among the top 10 in DVOA ever during the regular season. The best Baltimore team — and what appeared to be its most foolproof and legitimate version on offense — in a decade-plus looked out of sorts. It now has a multitude of key free agents hitting the open market. 

It'd be foolish to not at least mention the Cincinnati Bengals, who missed the playoffs largely due to Joe Burrow suffering a season-ending injury. After all, Zac Taylor's team was the last non-Chiefs one to win the conference. While the Bengals figure to bounce back in 2024 and have sizable cap space to work with, they're entering a franchise-altering offseason from a free agency perspective as well. Their best chance to win a championship was when they were in the actual game itself. 

Someone else (maybe Cincinnati, maybe the young-and-hungry Houston Texans, maybe an unexpected riser) will pop up and challenge the Chiefs. Perhaps one of the aforementioned three losing clubs will be right back in the same role. What's stopping the Chiefs from continuing their game of AFC Whac-A-Mole in 2025, though? Much of the defense is on rookie contracts, the team has enough cap space to retain one of its two clear star-level free agents and one would anticipate this is the worst group of skill-position players Mahomes will have for a while. Barring something like a Chris Jones departure leading to a huge drop-off, couldn't this level of team be the floor?

Following a tough Week 14 loss to the Bills, I wrote that the Chiefs weren't fooling anyone in their last handful of games. If they were going to win a Super Bowl, they'd have to prove it against playoff-caliber teams. Their championship DNA was "either in hiding or doesn't exist." As it turns out, there was a switch to be flipped despite most evidence signaling otherwise. The Chiefs' real evidence, albeit simple, is their ability to consistently find ways to get the job done. 

Of course, all of this could end in a disappointing Super Bowl loss to a great team with a somewhat unproven quarterback. But that doesn't change much of this equation. The Chiefs, embracing their flaws and all, turned out to be right. Rankings, statistics, vibes, eye test and circumstances aside, they did have enough to reach the ultimate game of the season. 

For another year, the conference's game of musical chairs ended with only the Chiefs having a seat. This was the best chance for another outcome and a possible dethroning of a budding dynasty. Now, all the conference can do is crank the volume back up roughly a year from now and hope for something different. Someone will knock Kansas City off — it's happened before — but there's no better bet for majority dominance of the AFC than the organization currently having it.

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