KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Yearly throughout Andy Reid’s offseason coaching program, the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs dedicate three separate days to analyzing and getting 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 examine them, he added, such as you’re about to play them.
Actually, that is a sensible matter to Reid: It is a manner his gamers and workers can maintain in tune with what’s coming, and it could determine to stir at the very least some tentative components of technique.
Nevertheless it’s additionally a part of a relentless message, a primary directive of kinds.
One which has resonated via 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 total coach in NFL historical past, now has extra AFC West championships on his ledger than another coach.
“That is initially,” added long-snapper James Winchester, one among simply two gamers remaining on the crew (together with Travis Kelce) who was right here the final time the Chiefs did not win the West. “And then you definately 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 an important 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 dropping Sunday’s sport may hardly be extra substantial. Per The Athletic’s NFL Playoff Simulator, a Chiefs victory would increase their probabilities 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 may actually fear about.”
Seeing as how the Chiefs stay eighth total for the seven-team AFC playoff bracket if the season ended at this time, a loss clearly additionally could be a blow to their total playoff ambitions.
The wild-card route is extra arduous upon arrival however extra forgiving on the best way, in fact.
And, heck, it wasn’t so way back (2015) {that a} 5-5 Chiefs crew — 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, in fact, 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 should 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 best way that this league is true now, you’ve got acquired to have the ability to try 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 huge delight in profitable, even because it maybe has come to look mundane to followers contemplating all their extra gaudy current feats.
Anticipate that mindset to be effervescent for Sunday, one thing we acquired a glimpse of even within the sometimes understated Reid a couple of 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 of fireplace when requested about supposed ramp-ups of divisional foes that offseason.
“You’ll be able to take it as a badge of honor (or) crawl underneath the desk and be afraid,” he mentioned then. “My factor is, hear, let’s go. … We’re not chopped liver on the market. We’ve some fairly good gamers.
“So let’s play.”
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