The Kansas City Chiefs notched their seventh consecutive victory with their 34-28 win over the Los Angeles Chargers on “Thursday Night Football.”
This was the third consecutive game played against an AFC West opponent and the fourth victory over an AFC West opponent this season. They’re now 10-4 on the season with a two-game lead on the division over the Chargers, who are the next closest team in pursuit of the AFC West title.
According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Kansas City now has a 93.1% chance of winning the AFC West division. But how do they actually go about clinching the division title? They can actually win it in a variety of different ways in the coming weeks.
Should the Chargers or Broncos lose another game and the Chiefs win another game, they’d clinch the AFC West. Alternatively, K.C. could simply win any two games remaining on their schedule and they’re in. Should Kansas City lose the next two games, they can also still win the division with a win over Denver in Week 18. How is that possible? In that scenario, they would at worst tie Los Angeles at 11-6, but they’d win the tiebreaker over the Chargers with a better division record.
Should the Chiefs accomplish this feat, it’ll mark the sixth consecutive season in which they’ve won the AFC West. That’d be good for the most consecutive wins by a team in the history of the AFC West. In fact, only two other teams in NFL history would have longer streaks of dominance in their respective divisions. The Los Angeles Rams from 1973-1979 and the New England Patriots from 2009-2019.
Next up, Kansas City will play their final home game of the regular season against the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’ll do so on extended rest after playing on Thursday night in Week 15.
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