Patrick Mahomes has led the Chiefs through some very difficult scenarios in his first nine seasons in the NFL. Kansas City has had its back against the proverbial wall numerous times and has more often than not found a way to claw out of whatever hole it’s found itself in and come out on top. After a 3-4 start in 2021, the team made it all the way to the AFC Championship Game before losing in overtime to the Cincinnati Bengals. In 2023, an 11-6 regular-season record left the Chiefs with the chore of traveling to Buffalo and Baltimore in the AFC playoffs to make it to Super Bowl 58, which they then won in overtime over the San Francisco 49ers.
Yes, this team has been “down bad” before, but never quite this bad this late in the season. At 6-6 currently, the Chiefs sit in 10th place in a loaded AFC. Are some of the teams ahead of them relative newcomers who may not have the chops to ice a game against the Grim Reaper in the playoffs? Sure. But for that to happen, the Reaper and his teammates have to be perfect—not nearly perfect—and hope they get help elsewhere over the course of the last five games of the season to even have a shot at playing the spoiler this postseason.
The Chiefs have to let the chips fall where they may, but some of those chips are falling in the right places for Kansas City already. After a 20-16 loss to the Texans on Sunday, the Colts appear to be falling apart from a performance and health standpoint at the wrong time. The Chiefs currently hold tiebreakers over the Colts and Ravens and have an immediate opportunity on Sunday to pick one up over the Texans. If the Jaguars ascend to take the AFC South, the Chiefs would be in a three-team race with Indy and Houston, both of whom they would (in theory) have tiebreakers over.
Kansas City also gets another crack at the two teams ahead of them currently in the AFC West. Not that this will help the Chiefs win the division—Denver would have to lose out and the Chargers would need to go 2-3 or 1-4 in their last five for Kansas City to win the AFC West—but it would help to gather wins over AFC opponents in an attempt to gain a tiebreaker with the Chargers as well.
For the Chiefs’ remaining five games, you can really break things down into three buckets: the Immediate Must-Win, the Should-Wins, and the Divisional Tilts. Let’s examine these buckets and see how realistic it is for the Chiefs to get to 11-6 and have a shot at making another run at a Lombardi Trophy.
The Immediate Must-Win
AFC Wild Card Playoffs: Los Angeles Chargers v Houston Texans | Alex Slitz/GettyImages
This is the most difficult to gauge as well as the most pressing because it’s literally around the corner. The Texans come to Arrowhead for a primetime matchup Sunday night with everything on the line. With a win, the Chiefs stay alive in their hopes of making the playoffs. With a loss—that’s essentially all she wrote for Kansas City in 2025.
The Texans defense is by most metrics the top unit in the NFL. In recent weeks, Will Anderson Jr. and company have been making opposing QBs’ lives a living hell—just ask Daniel Jones and Josh Allen. With the injuries the Chiefs have along the offensive front, there is a chance this becomes a very, very painful affair for Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. But there’s also a shot that the Chiefs could negate some of the Texans’ heat off of the edges of its vaunted defense by doing something the team did against the Indianapolis Colts—bruising the gut of the defense by pounding the rock in the running game.
Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco must be utilized early and often in this game if the Chiefs want to keep their season alive. This doesn’t mean 20 sporadic designed run plays being deployed at random when there is no rhythm established. This means going to the well early and often and keeping the Texans’ pass rush on its heels all night long. The weapons the Chiefs have in the receiving corps could match up very nicely against the Texans’ tendency to stick in man coverage, assuming Mahomes can stay clean in the pocket.
The first one of the five-game stretch may be the toughest one of them all. If the Chiefs come out victorious on Sunday night, I will have returned to full-on “This team is so back and going to the Super Bowl” mode. If they cannot, we will be in for the most interesting offseason we have ever seen in the Mahomes era. The fans are fully aware of the do-or-die nature of this game as well, and a Sunday night under the lights at Arrowhead Stadium will make for a historically raucous crowd. I like the Chiefs’ chances of pulling this one out and moving to 7-6.
The Should-Wins
Jacksonville Jaguars v Tennessee Titans – NFL 2025 | Justin Ford/GettyImages
Any team in the NFL can jump up and bite you if you don’t have the appropriate sense of urgency. That is the nature of the league—even the bad teams have great players who are also, coincidentally, paid to play football. Having said that, the Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders are very clearly on different planes than the Kansas City Chiefs from a talent perspective, and if the Chiefs’ sense of urgency is where it should be, there should be little doubt about these two contests.
Kansas City has already boat-raced the Raiders once this season, leaving no doubt in a 31-0 bloodbath at Arrowhead Stadium in mid-October. This game will be played in the Raiders’ home stadium in Vegas, but we will get to once again reflect on one of the most hilarious stats in this Chiefs’ dynastic run: that Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid have more wins than any other quarterback and head coach in Allegiant Stadium since it was opened.
The Titans are a young, hungry team, but they are still a couple of years away from being a concern for a hungry Chiefs team. This would be the ultimate “fall” opponent for Kansas City if they were coming into the game with one or two losses and cruising to a 1-seed in the AFC, but the back-against-the-wall mentality that the Chiefs have does not lend itself to the Titans making a splash with a signature win for Cam Ward. These two games should be no-brainer wins for the Chiefs, moving the win total to nine on the year.
The Divisional Tilts
Denver Broncos v Los Angeles Chargers | Ronald Martinez/GettyImages
We all know these teams. We all hate these teams. And the Chiefs have lost to both of them already. Both the Chargers and the Broncos are currently in unfamiliar territory—looking down at the Chiefs in the AFC West standings entering December. Bo Nix and Justin Herbert have finally done what all of the pundits have been clamoring for for years now—they’ve seemingly dethroned Mahomes and the Chiefs dynasty and taken back the AFC West for the good guys. History doesn’t always repeat itself. But sometimes it sure does rhyme.
How fitting would it be if two victories over divisional opponents (both in Arrowhead Stadium in December) were what vaulted the Chiefs into the playoff picture? The Broncos and Chargers can have their first- and second-place finishes (presumably) in the AFC West, but what if they let their guards down and let the Chiefs sneak into the picture? Do either of these quarterbacks have the ability to look themselves in the mirror and confidently say they’re comfortable with a showdown with Patrick Mahomes in the AFC playoffs? We all know the answer to that.
The Chiefs are flawed. They have at times looked downright broken in 2025. But the poetry that could be written by this team conquering the final five games of this season and being the hottest team in the AFC entering the playoffs would be something that would serve as nightmare fuel for the teams who are lauding their downfall in the division standings.
It is easy to have doubts creep in about this team at this juncture in the season. Let’s not forget where they have been in the past. When Kansas City iced the 2023 AFC Championship Game in Baltimore, the voice of the Chiefs, Mitch Holthus, famously exclaimed, “You can doubt the Chiefs, you can dislike the Chiefs, you can disrespect the Chiefs. But you’re going to have to deal with the Chiefs.”
This should be what the entire fanbase and team latch on to until we are given reason not to. Five-and-oh is a distinct possibility, and it all starts with a showdown against the Texans in primetime on Sunday. To answer the question at the top of the blog—yes, the Chiefs are well-equipped to make this run.
