For the second consecutive week, the Kansas City Chiefs remain No. 1 in Touchdown Wire’s power rankings, recognized as the top team in the NFL. They have the best record in the league at 12-1 after beating the Dolphins in Week 14, completing an eight-game winning streak and clinching the AFC West division title for the fifth consecutive season.
The crazy thing about this is that the Chiefs didn’t play their best game in Miami in Week 14. They’ve once again proved that they don’t have to play a great game to win. They had a -3 turnover differential, yet at one point during the game, Kansas City led the Dolphins by 20 points. Their performance left Touchdown Wire’s Mark Schofield in awe of their inevitability.
Here’s a preview of what he wrote this week:
“The difficulty in playing Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs is that you need to play the full 60 minutes. Ask Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garoppolo. Ask Anthony Lynn and Justin Herbert. In both Super Bowl LIV and earlier this season, teams that executed a great gameplan against them and got some breaks found out the hard way that you can only slow them down for so long.”
There is no blueprint to stopping the Chiefs. That’s not to say they’re unbeatable, but they’re pretty close to it. The team has a 21-1 record (including the postseason) dating back to Week 10 of 2019. Even when opponents have caught breaks against the Chiefs and managed to take a lead, just as the Dolphins did in Week 14, they’ve been largely unsuccessful.
Since the start of 2019, the Chiefs are now 8-1 (.888) with Patrick Mahomes at QB after falling behind by 10+ points.
The rest of the NFL is 68-356-1 (.160) combined when trailing by 10+ points during that same period.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) December 13, 2020
As I told Dolphins Wire ahead of Week 14, really the only way to beat Kansas City is to execute better than they do on offense for a full 60 minutes. A good defense isn’t keeping this team down, the only thing that can seemingly get in their way is their own poor offensive execution resulting in drops, mistakes, and penalties. That’s the closest thing there is to a blueprint to stopping the Chiefs. With a tough-as-nails defensive unit that features a playmaking secondary, even keeping pace with Kansas City is a tough ask for most NFL teams. It’s why they currently have the best record in the NFL and why people are beginning to wonder if there exists a team that can match up with them come playoff time.
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