Look around for yourself. Literally, any source that has discussion of the Monday Night Football game between the visiting Washington Commanders and the Kansas City Chiefs will tell you why the Chiefs are
huge favorites, and why they should be.
Today, I’m going to talk about reasons for Commanders fans to look on this as a favorable
matchup — or at least one in which Washington has a path to victory.If your first impulse is to simply skip to the comments section and tell me why I’m “delusional”, save yourself the trouble of offering the least creative or insightful critique ever devised by sports social media. If you want to criticize the analysis or insult my intelligence, please put in some effort.
Let’s get the series history out of the way
The Commanders vs. Chiefs rivalry has been played 11 times, with the Washington Commanders winning 1 game and the Kansas City Chiefs winning 10 games.
The lone Washington win came in 1983, and Washington has never beaten the Chiefs in any of the 5 prior games played in Kansas City.
What this tells me is that the Commanders are overdue.
As you read the rest of the preview, it should become clear that Kansas City is vulnerable and Washington is primed for a season-altering victory.
This is the year to break the long-term series trends. This is the week for the upset victory that re-writes the current 2025 Commanders narrative.
Common Opponents
I’ve been reading all week about how Kansas City’s offense is ‘back’ to the explosive form that had been missing previously.
Kansas City began the ’25 season with an 0-2 start, and had a 2-3 record after 5 weeks; people were asking what was wrong with the Chiefs.
So, what is the basis for this burst of optimism across the NFL about the Chiefs offensive resurrection?
It’s primarily due to the 31-0 shellacking that KC laid on division rival Las Vegas Raiders in Week 7.
That would be the same LV Raiders that gave up 41 points to the Commanders (34 scored by the offense; 7 by special teams). As a reminder, Washington’s starting quarterback in that Raiders game was Marcus Mariota.
Chiefs on the left; Commanders on the right
In seven weeks of play, the Chiefs and Commanders have played three common opponents: the Chargers, Raiders, and Giants.
- both teams have played 2 home games
- The Commanders started a backup QB vs Raiders
- The Chiefs are 2-1 in these three games; the Commanders are a perfect 3-0
- Kansas City’s loss was at home, in Arrowhead Stadium
- Washington has out-scored Kansas City against these common opponents, 89 – 74
- Washington’s combined margins of victory (+47) compares favorably with that of the Chiefs (+38)
- The Commanders defense allowed an additional 2 points per game to be scored compared to the Chiefs
Against common opponents, Washington produced 20% more points and did not lose a game.
This should provide a solid platform for Commanders fan confidence about Washington’s ability to come out of Kansas City with a win.
Kansas City’s mostly losing to good teams while collecting wins against bad teams
One thing I’ve gotten used to over years of following Washington football is the criticism that the burgundy & gold could only get wins against bad teams and that victories over good teams were the exception, not the rule.
That sure seems to describe the 4-3 Kansas City Chiefs in 2025.
Kansas City is a perfect 3-0 against teams with 2 wins or less on the season, but only 1-3 versus teams with winning records.
KC seems to have just one “quality win” on it’s record so far. Other than that, the Chiefs have beaten up on bad teams while losing to good teams.
This looks like what you’d see from one of the NFL’s middle-class teams — not a fearsome juggernaut.
The Commanders 2025 record against good & bad teams
In fact, the Chiefs results here aren’t dramatically different from the struggling Commanders, who have beaten both sub-.500 teams that they have faced (and one team with a winning record) while losing 4 out of 5 versus teams with records of .500 or better.
Washington appears to have struggled a bit more than Kansas City this season, but the gulf between the two teams looks to be rather narrow and not very deep.
The Commanders — with the right attitude and plan — should be able to compete with the Chiefs this week.
Advanced metrics say that the Commanders are better than their 3-4 record would indicate
While most people are conversant with rankings based on yards or points scored, most fans are also aware of advance metrics — DVOA in particular — and either believe that DVOA is a more accurate measure of team performance or that it is a ‘made up number’.
For those in the former group, there may be a surprise with the DVOA rankings for the first 7 weeks of the 2025 season.
The Kansas City Chiefs offense is ranked 5th overall by DVOA while the Commanders offense is ranked 7th — not a lot of difference. Here’s the explanation from the creators of the DVOA metric:
The strangest rating right now might be the Washington Commanders at No. 7 despite a 3-4 record and a bad 44-22 loss to the Dallas Cowboys this week.
The reason is that the Commanders were phenomenal in their three wins. All three games currently have DVOA ratings over 70%, although that could change as opponent adjustments develop. The Commanders are below 0% for all four losses and have the highest variance of any team in the NFL this year.
The total package is better than you think, but really inconsistent, and of course they have a lot of injury issues including starting quarterback Jayden Daniels.
With Jayden Daniels missing two games, Austin Ekeler out for the season, Sam Cosmi missing 6 games, Noah Brown missing 5 games, Terry McLaurin missing 4 games, and Deebo Samuel missing last week, the Commanders have had one of the top offenses in the league (and close behind the Chiefs offense) as measured by this advanced metric.
With good news on the injury front this week at the WR position, and the Chiefs-killer, Marcus Mariota at QB, the Commanders are poised for a substantial uptick in offensive production. Kansas City won’t be facing the toothless offense that got mangled by the Cowboys in Week 7.
What’s changed – Terry & Deebo
Anyone who follows Commanders football knows that the Commanders have played their past 4 games without the team’s top wide receiver, Terry McLaurin. Against the Cowboys in Week 7, Deebo Samuel, the team’s statistical leader in receiving in 2025, was also missing.
Without either of these threats (and also missing Noah Brown), the Commanders offense found it difficult to threaten the Cowboys effectively. The result was a blowout loss in Dallas.
It’s no coincidence that the Commanders were 1-3 in Terry’s absence, especially last week, when Deebo was out as well.
Sam Cosmi returned to the offense last week and had a good game. This week, the skill positions should get a big boost from the return of Washington’s top two receivers.
With Terry & Deebo on the field together, Washington’s offense becomes a much more threatening beast to defend, sparking more production in the passing game and loosening up defensive alignments to create better opportunities in the run game as well.
That should have a positive impact on next week’s offensive DVOA number!
Marcus Mariota
Dan Quinn has confirmed that QB Jayden Daniels will miss this week’s game due to injury.
His backup, Marcus Mariota, is perfectly capable of leading the Commanders.
- In 2024, Mariota played most of the game against the Panthers (59 snaps) and the second half against the Cowboys in Dallas (32 snaps). Washington won both games, scoring 40 points against Carolina and making a comeback — 3 touchdowns in the 2nd half — to beat the Cowboys.
- This season, Mariota has started two games, with the offense averaging over 30 points per game under his leadership.
- Mariota has one career regular-season start against the Chiefs — a win.
- Mariota has one career playoff starts against the Chiefs — a win
With the early decision on Jayden Daniels’ game status, Mariota, who is undefeated in 2 career starts against Kansas City, will get the benefit of all the starter’s reps in practice this week, with an extra day of preparation for Monday Night Football.
He should also have the benefit of playing with Sam Cosmi, Terry McLaurin and Deebo Samuel all on the field together — something that will be happening for the first time in the 2025 season if it comes to pass.
It seems more than just possible that the Commanders offense will function smoothly under the leadership of a skilled veteran quarterback who will be playing behind an offensive line that was ranked No. 9 in the NFL by Pro Football Focus last week, and having the benefit of the team’s top two receivers for the first time since the 3rd quarter of the Week 3 game against the Raiders.
So far in 2025, the Chiefs have scored 22 total touchdowns (tied for 4th in the league); the Commanders have scored 21.
Look for a much-improved Washington offense on Monday night — one that is capable of out-scoring Kansas City.
What’s changed – A new defensive plan?
The Commanders lost two starting defensive ends and a key rotational DE to injury in the first 7 weeks of the season. Apparently, neither starter will be back this season.
Washington hasn’t made any big moves — no trades or significant free agent signings — to replace, in particular, Deatrich Wise and Dorance Armstrong.
With key personnel missing, the necessary response would seem to be a change in scheme or alignment to make use of the personnel available.
This week, Mark Bullock highlighted an option that Joe Whitt not only can make use of — but actually did make use of against the Cowboys last week.
The adjustment involves aligning Luvu as a stand-up OLB in a 3-4 look, with a player like Martin similarly aligned on the opposite side of the defense, with Jordan Magee taking Luvu’s place as the 2nd off-the-ball linebacker.
You can see from the photo that this look was used against the Cowboys.
Snap counts and alignments reinforce the idea that this was not a once-only look versus the Cowboys.
Frankie Luvu Snaps by Position for 2025
You can see from the chart that Luvu has lined up weekly as part of the defensive line, but while his usual proportion of DL snaps was around 1/3 of his total snaps through the first six weeks, against the Cowboys (the game in which Dorance Armstrong was injured), Luvu was aligned there a season-high 48% of the time.
With Armstong now on IR and gone completely from the Commanders defense, we could see a dramatic shift in the way Luvu is used in the Washington defense.
Jordan Magee Snaps by Position for 2025
Meanwhile, you can see that Jordan Magee played the greatest number of defensive snaps of his young NFL career last week, with 21 of 22 snaps aligned as an off-the-ball linebacker. Presumably, many of those snaps represented Magee taking snaps as part of a 3-4 alignment necessitated by the loss of Dorance Armstrong to injury.
Bullock argues that this alignment optimizes the skills of the players available, making use of Magee’s speed and Luvu’s flexibility to play the run, rush the passer or drop into coverage.
This potential new-look defense could enhance the defensive speed and cause problems for the Chiefs.
Special Teams advantage
If you’ve watched Commanders football over the past two seasons, you know that the coaching staff has taken a very aggressive attitude in its approach to special teams, turning it into a team strength and a competitive advantage.
If you watch a lot of NFL football in addition to your weekly fix of the Commanders, you may have seen that Washington seems to be doing kickoff and punt coverage better than the competition.
Well, they’re actually the best in the league at the moment.
And it’s not really close.
In an article published a couple of weeks ago, I discussed in some detail the overall benefit that accrues from the enhanced field position advantage that this kind of special teams play provides.
The Commanders lead the league in average yards per return at 33.2. Washinton is one of only two teams to exceed 27.6 ypr, and the only team to be above 30 ypr.
This advantage isn’t just a mathematical outlier due to one big return in a small statistical sample. While Deebo Samuel did produce a 69-yard return, that is only the 3rd-longest return in the NFL this season. More significantly, Washington leads the league in ‘explosive’ returns of 40+ yards with 4 such returns. Only one other team has more than two, and 18 teams don’t have any at all.
Again, this massive advantage should have a strong statistical correlation to points scored; that is, better starting field position leads to more field goals and touchdowns on average.
Leading the league in kickoff and punt coverage & returns is a huge advantage to both offense and defense in terms of field position.
This is an advantage that can be exploited every week, including this week against Kansas City.
Standings
The Commanders and Chiefs are in quite similar situations at the moment.
- Both teams are in 3rd place in their respective divisions; each is 1-1 inside the division.
- Both divisions are led by a team with a 5-2 record; both have a 2-5 team in last place.
- Either team, with a loss this week, is locked into 3rd place for another week.
- Either team, with a win this week, could have moved up to 2nd place, but only with a loss by the team ahead of them. The Chargers (2nd place in the AFC West) already beat the Vikings on Thursday night; the Cowboys (2nd place in the NFC East) play at Denver on Sunday and the Broncos are favored by 3.5 points.
Washington
A win by the Commanders over Kansas City on Monday night would be considered a dramatic upset despite the two teams having had very similar seasons. The main reason for that is that the Chiefs are on a 2-game win streak and coming off a 31-0 shutout of a division rival while the Commanders are on a 2-game losing streak and will play without the team’s starting quarterback after being on the wrong end of a 44-22 blowout against a division rival.
Those recent results overshadow the similarity of the two teams’ seasons and mask Washington’s ability to compete offensively with Kansas City in Week 8.
Washington’s following two games are against the 5-2 Seahawks and the 5-2 Lions, both of whom are in 2nd place in their respective divisions and in need of every win they can muster in the chase for the lead.
Coming into Week 8, the Commanders lost two games in a row in which they were favored against NFC opponents. They need this win against the Chiefs. No Commanders player, coach or fan wants to see Washington drop to 3-5 before hitting the meaty part of the schedule in Weeks 9 and 10.
Kansas City
The road ahead for KC is, if anything, more daunting than what faces the Commanders. The Chiefs have the following schedule in the 4 weeks that follow Monday Night Football:
- @Bills (4-2; 2nd place AFCE)
- @Broncos (5-2; 1st place AFCW)
- Colts (6-1; 1st place AFCS)
- @Cowboys (3-3-1; 2nd place NFCE)
The Chiefs may not require the confidence boost that Washington appears to need right now, but a loss to the Commanders in Week 8 could end up as the start of a mid-season losing streak that could wreck Kansas City’s plans for the ‘25 season.
On the other hand, a win on MNF would give KC some breathing room as they enter the next three weeks against a trio of quality AFC opponents. Washington needs to make sure that doesn’t happen.
The point spread
FanDuel currently has the Chiefs favored by 11.5 points, which seems pretty outrageous to me. Washington has struggled a bit more that Kansas City this season — especially in Week 7 — but the gap between the two teams simply isn’t that wide.
The over/under of 47.5 points seems quite low to me. Chiefs games would have gone over that number in 3 of their 4 most recent games; Washington would have gone over in 5 of their last 6 games.
The Commanders have painted themselves into a corner with losses against the Bears and Cowboys in the past two weeks. They really need the win this week to get back to .500 and re-ignite the momentum they seemed to have following the Week 5 road win over the Chargers, but which slipped away when a water-slicked ball went through Jayden Daniels’ hands with 3 minutes left in the Bears game.
The Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium offer the perfect opportunity to get the season back on track.
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