Week 16 AFC West Roundup
By Justin Smith
Kansas City Chiefs
2nd Place – AFC West
Record: 11-4
Last Game: won at home over Denver Broncos (8-7) 33-10
Next Game: at San Diego Chargers (5-10) Sun, Jan 2, 4:25 EST
It all comes down to this. The Chiefs have dominated their divisional competition and as such have a chance, with a Raider loss and a win over San Diego, to win the AFC West.
The Chargers just lost to the Browns and look fairly disinterested in football right now. So that’s good for the Chiefs, as it’s always nice to play teams going through the motions at this time of year. Particularly when you have something to gain but your opponent does not.
The Chiefs believe that they are the best team and deserve the AFC West. As such they’ll fight tooth and nail Sunday for their shot. San Diego believes that this season has been an embarrassment and that their hometown “fans” don’t really want them around.
Who has more motivation here? Hmmm.
Tyreek Hill is a TD scoring machine. That outside run against the Broncos didn’t look anywhere close to a TD – until he turned the corner and nobody came close to catching him. It looked like Pop Warner where the fastest 10 year old kid just outruns everyone else. That’s Hill.
Catching the ball, running the ball, returning kicks. He’s Kansas City’s #1 x-factor as to whether they go far in the playoffs or not, with apologies to Dontari Poe and his rocket arm.
And Travis Kelce is just ruining defensive game plans.
Kelce has 100+ yards in four straight games, and last weekend against the Broncos he was a tour de force with a career high 160 receiving yards against a normally formidable pass defense.
Without Derrick Johnson in the middle they’ve struggled against the run and the Titans and Raiders both exposed that fact. AFC Playoff teams feature the #5 (Oakland), #6 (Houston), #8 (New England), #9 (Miami) and #11 (Pittsburgh – with Bell missing three games) rushing attacks in the NFL.
However, they still have a formidable pass rush and pass defense as Dee Ford and Marcus Peters are again healthy and wreaking havoc.
KC will go as far as their pass defense, Hill and Kelce can take them. Which appears to be very, very far. If Justin Houston can return healthy for the playoffs that boosts the pass rush that much more.
With Carr injured the Chiefs have a golden opportunity to seize the #2 seed in the AFC and send the Raiders to a wild-card road game, likely against Houston. The Chiefs have shown this season they have a killer instinct they’ve lacked in the past. Can they apply it this weekend with the division on the line?