Chiefs Are Down but Far From Out in AFC After Loss to Bills

A loss to a premier opponent stings, but Kansas City should be just fine long-term.

There's no sugarcoating the fact that because the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, their path to securing the AFC's top seed became a heck of a lot tougher.

With that said, there's also no need to panic. Everything the Chiefs want to have is generally out in front of them — they may just need a bit of help down the road.

Moral victories in sports are largely unnecessary. Football, like its professional counterparts, is a result-oriented business. At the end of the year, teams' processes don't matter. Results matter. Outcomes matter. A win continues a season, even if it's an ugly one. A loss ends it, even if it was a close one. 

Context, however, isn't the same as a moral victory. Those processes (good or bad) add up over time and help determine a team's ultimate outcome come playoff time. It's why there are 17 games before the postseason. One can admit that Kansas City lost to a better team — the best team — in Week 6 while also admitting that things aren't quite as dire as many believe and may not have a lasting impact.

For all the talk about the Chiefs' shorthanded defense not being in for a productive day against the Bills' high-flying attack, Steve Spagnuolo's unit surrendered just 24 points. Considering that Buffalo still broke off multiple big plays for touchdowns and strung together a few impressive drives on the afternoon, that's saying something. How often is Kansas City's offense going to muster 20 points overall and only three points in the fourth quarter? It was just earlier this month that Andy Reid's group hung 41 points on what was viewed at the time as perhaps the NFL's best defense.

Heading into the 2022 season, a quick look at the first six games of the Chiefs' schedule led many to reason that a 4-2 start would be a near-best outcome. With a new-look offense filled with different receivers and a defense fielding multiple rookies, it only made sense to expect some growing pains. Winning two-thirds of the club's opening contests sounded like a positive result. Through six weeks, that's exactly where Kansas City is at.

Spagnuolo's defense is ahead of schedule. Rookies such as Jaylen Watson have arrived out of seemingly nowhere, and veterans like Chris Jones are stepping up in major ways. There's still a ton of room for improvement, specifically in the pass-rush department when not blitzing. Offensively, the Chiefs were a top-five team in the league before hosting the Bills on Sunday afternoon. Patrick Mahomes is still one of the best football players in the world. That doesn't change after a loss in which he made a fatal mistake to end things on the team's final drive.

No one should have learned anything massive from Kansas City's loss that would've caused their opinion to be altered in a significant way. Coming into Sunday's outing, Buffalo was a more complete team with fewer question marks and a quarterback who was playing (alongside Mahomes) at the highest level in the sport. The home team, on the other hand, was — and still is — a group with a ton of moving pieces and things to sort out by the time the playoffs roll around.

The beautiful thing for the Chiefs is that the gap between them and the Bills isn't significant at all and they have over two months to give themselves a better chance to win next time around. If anything, this close loss further proves that even in a "soft reset" year, Kansas City projects to remain a legitimate force in the AFC. If you ignored Buffalo's offseason moves and didn't consider Sean McDermott's team a serious contender at the very top, that's on you.

Getting back to that No. 1 seed... the Chiefs have some work to do. Being a game back of the Bills and surrendering the tiebreaker advantage means that a trip to Orchard Park, NY, in January is likely should they advance far enough for it. If there's one thing these two clubs have shown in their last three matchups against one another, though, it's that they're the best of the best. Regardless of circumstance and regardless of location, they're going to put on a show. Expecting the Chiefs to run away with the AFC before the game was silly, and so is expecting them to be doomed after it. Kansas City is down for the moment, but it's far from out in the grand scheme of things.