KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Yearly throughout Andy Reid’s offseason coaching program, the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs dedicate three separate days to analyzing and making ready for his or her AFC West rivals.
It is a subject the Chiefs head coach briefly alluded to Wednesday however spoke to extra particularly once I requested him about it in September 2022, earlier than they performed the Chargers in that season’s division opener.
“It sort of breaks it up and offers the blokes one thing to take a look at,” he mentioned. “Plus it is a good feeder for you. Makes coaches suppose, makes the gamers take into consideration who they’re enjoying.”
You research them, he added, such as you’re about to play them.
Actually, that is a sensible matter to Reid: It is a means his gamers and employees can preserve in tune with what’s coming, and it could determine to stir not less than some tentative components of technique.
However it’s additionally a part of a relentless message, a major directive of kinds.
One which has resonated by means of a franchise that has gained 9 consecutive AFC West titles — after profitable six within the earlier 45 seasons for the reason that AFL-NFL merger — and 54 of its final 64 divisional video games.
The primary purpose, quarterback Patrick Mahomes reiterated Wednesday, all the time is to win the divisional race.
One thing the Chiefs have executed so terribly on this span that Reid, the fourth-winningest general coach in NFL historical past, now has extra AFC West championships on his ledger than some other coach.
“That is in the beginning,” added long-snapper James Winchester, one in every of simply two gamers remaining on the workforce (together with Travis Kelce) who was right here the final time the Chiefs didn’t win the West. “And you then go from there.”
The “go from there” baseline has made for fairly a formulation for the Chiefs, who’ve performed within the final seven AFC Championship Video games and 5 of the final six Tremendous Bowls — and gained three.
“It has been one thing,” Mahomes mentioned, “that has been necessary to us.”
Which is what makes this week such a vital crossroads.
As a result of getting into their sport Sunday at Denver (8-2), that portal to the postseason is in jeopardy as by no means earlier than within the Mahomes Period.
At 5-4, the Chiefs are three video games behind the Broncos and two video games behind the Chargers (7-3) — who additionally maintain the benefit of beating the Chiefs within the first of their two conferences.
The implications of profitable or shedding Sunday’s sport may hardly be extra substantial. Per The Athletic’s NFL Playoff Simulator, a Chiefs victory would enhance their possibilities of profitable the division from 25% now to 38%.
With a defeat, their prospects would tumble to 7%.
Or as Mahomes put it after pondering the implications of a loss this week: “It would be robust to return and get (this) one,” he mentioned, instantly including, “All you are able to do is simply deal with this week; that is all you possibly can actually fear about.”
Seeing as how the Chiefs stay eighth general for the seven-team AFC playoff bracket if the season ended right this moment, a loss clearly additionally could be a blow to their general playoff ambitions.
The wild-card route is extra arduous upon arrival however extra forgiving on the best way, after all.
And, heck, it wasn’t so way back (2015) {that a} 5-5 Chiefs workforce — one which had began 1-5 in a season on the brink — earned a postseason berth by profitable its final 10 regular-season video games after which the franchise’s first playoff sport in additional than 20 years.
A lot has modified since then, after all, between the appearance of Mahomes and a dynastic run like few in NFL historical past.
So what a decade in the past was a breakthrough — a wild-card win earlier than abrupt elimination within the divisional spherical — would really feel like a fiasco now due to the place the usual has been set: The Chiefs have reached the AFC Championship Recreation in each season since Mahomes grew to become QB1.
One of many pivotal causes that is been established is the elemental pillar of AFC West dominance and what comes with that.
Making chew toys of their divisional foes over a lot of the final decade was about greater than only a foundational path to the postseason.
We must anticipate an in depth sport on Sunday, a dynamic that had been a lot to the Chiefs’ benefit the last few seasons (after they gained an NFL-record 17 consecutive one-score video games) however that has been problematic this season:
All 4 of their losses have are available in simply these eventualities, even because the Broncos have gained 5 of their video games by a complete of 13 factors.
“The way in which that this league is true now, you’ve got received to have the ability to do this,” Reid mentioned. “The parity … is fairly loopy. Particularly within the AFC West.”
One thing that the Chiefs perceive is essential — a title that they’ve taken monumental pleasure in profitable, even because it maybe has come to look mundane to followers contemplating all their extra gaudy latest feats.
Anticipate that mindset to be effervescent for Sunday, one thing we received a glimpse of even within the usually understated Reid just a few years in the past.
In his Missouri Western dorm close to the top of the 2022 coaching camp in St. Joseph, Reid flashed a bit fireplace when requested about supposed ramp-ups of divisional foes that offseason.
“You possibly can take it as a badge of honor (or) crawl underneath the desk and be afraid,” he mentioned then. “My factor is, pay attention, let’s go. … We’re not chopped liver on the market. Now we have some fairly good gamers.
“So let’s play.”
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