Have you taken a look at the AFC playoff race lately? Am I seeing this right?
If the season ended today, the Kansas City Chiefs wouldn’t make the playoffs — and the Indianapolis Colts, Denver Broncos, and New
England Patriots would have the top three seeds.
How is this possible? Am I the only one who can’t believe this?
Before the season began, oddsmakers like FanDuel Sportsbook set the Colts’ win total at 7.5. The Patriots were at 8.5. The Broncos were the “leading contender” of the bunch at 9.5. That was tied with the Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers for the AFC’s seventh-highest win total.
Football can be unpredictable, of course. But this is flat-out shocking. Is it here to stay?
Call me old school, but I’m hard-pressed to believe a team led by a quarterback like Daniel Jones, Bo Nix or Drake Maye will suddenly emerge as the AFC’s team to beat over teams led by Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson.
Oddsmakers appear to share my skepticism. The Chiefs remain the favorite to win the conference, followed by the Buffalo Bills and the Colts. The Baltimore Ravens have the fourth-best odds to win the conference, followed by the Patriots and Broncos.
That’s how I see this going, too — but at a certain point, production on the field has to match my perception of what’s to come.
The Bills already have a head-to-head loss to the Patriots — and will not play the Broncos or Colts. The Ravens don’t play them, either — but will face New England in Week 16. While Kansas City will avoid the Patriots, the next two weeks will measure the AFC’s defending champions against Denver and Indianapolis.
But these are exactly the kinds of games that have been giving the Chiefs problems this season. Kansas City is 1-4 when playing a team that is currently in the postseason mix. The offense has scored 21 or fewer points in three of the four losses, while the defense has allowed at least 27 points in three of those games.
This needs to change — and it needs to change right now.
But the Broncos enter this Week 11 home matchup on a seven-game winning streak. Their defense makes things tough on just about every team they face, allowing 4.3 yards per play. By a decent margin, that’s the league’s lowest mark.
Denver has also racked up 46 sacks. That’s more than any team has posted through 10 weeks since the Minnesota Vikings collected 50 in 1989. This makes third down a nightmare for opposing offenses, who have converted just 28% of their attempts. That’s the second-lowest rate through 10 weeks since 2020.
Even reaching the red zone guarantees nothing. The Broncos have allowed a touchdown on just nine of their opponents’ 24 red-zone opportunities. That tops the league.
Still, it’s fair to mention that Denver’s wins haven’t been particularly convincing — and that the offense appears to be regressing. Six of its eight wins this season have been by just one score.
In other words, the Broncos are a team built on an outlier defense. While the offense has been shaky, the defense has been more than good enough to make up for it — at least so far.
The Colts are a mirror image of Denver’s team. Indianapolis is the league’s best offense by nearly every measure. Daniel Jones leads the league in passing yards. (I know. I’m as surprised as you are. I’ve checked it multiple times. It’s… somehow… still true.) Running back Jonathan Taylor leads the league in rushing yards. The gap between Taylor and the league’s third-leading rusher (Rico Dowdle) is the same as the gap between Dowdle and the league’s 25th-leading rusher (Jordan Mason).
So the Colts are another team with an outlier unit that makes it one of the AFC’s surprise contenders.
Once upon a time, this was the Chiefs’ role in the conference. Mahomes and the Kansas City offense were so dominant that nothing else about the team seemed to matter — that is, until they ran into the Patriots, who reminded all of us that even in the NFL’s pass-crazy era, defense does, in fact, have value.
I have to believe that same thing will ultimately happen to today’s Colts, Broncos and Patriots: their seasons will come to a premature end as the Chiefs, Bills or Ravens regain their supremacy.
But none of this is guaranteed. Kansas City still has plenty of work to do before it can even reach the postseason — much less send other contenders home.
A win this week would put the Chiefs just a game behind the Broncos in the standings — and would go a long way toward restoring a sense of normalcy in the conference. Winning the next two weeks would go even further toward Kansas City’s goal: keeping these upstart contenders from forcing a changing of the guard.
Do the Chiefs have what it takes to prevent it? We’re about to find out.
