Kansas City is 5-0 having allowed 83 points, and our model has moved the Chiefs to thirteen wins and the best title odds in the AFC
Updated
Kansas City took its bye, came back and beat the Chargers 22-6, and is 5-0 with the best point differential in the AFC. The Chiefs have allowed 83 points in five games, 16.6 a game, and the model has finally priced the defense that number describes. When we ran the rest of the season Kansas City came out at 13-4 with a 100 percent playoff chance and a 17.5 percent title chance, up from 12-5 and four percent two weeks ago and from 8.4 wins and a 31 percent playoff chance in July. Only Detroit has better title odds. The Chiefs have gained five wins since the summer, and most of the latest jump came from a model that now leans harder on this season's snaps looking at five games of a defense nothing like its 2025 self.
The offense has been very good and the running back has been the best player on it. Kenneth Walker III has 665 rushing yards and six touchdowns in five games, the most yards in the league by 24, and projects for 1,925 yards and 21 touchdowns, both the highest in football. Patrick Mahomes is 105 of 158 for 1,309 yards with nine touchdowns and three interceptions, a 103 rating, and projects for 4,124 yards and 27 touchdowns. Travis Kelce projects for 67 catches and seven touchdowns. Rashee Rice remains out with the hamstring and did not practice on Wednesday; his projection has slipped to 78 catches. Xavier Worthy projects for 64. Noah Gray has climbed to 35. The unit projects for 443 points, third in the league.
The defense is where the model moved most. Kansas City projects to allow 306 points, second in the league behind only Jacksonville, down from 350 and 14th two weeks ago. That 44-point move is the second-largest defensive upgrade in this run behind Green Bay and it is the direct result of the new weighting. George Karlaftis' sack projection has jumped from five to nearly nine with over a pick, the biggest individual move on the roster. Felix Anudike-Uzomah projects for over eight. Chris Jones for under six. Nick Bolton projects for 126 tackles, Drue Tranquill for 103 with over a pick. The team projects for 38 sacks, 24th, which is still the number the Jaguars and Steelers would attack in January, and nearly 13 interceptions, sixth.
The division is close to decided. Denver is 4-2 and projects for nine wins. Las Vegas is 3-3 and projects for eight. The Chargers are 0-6 and project for three. The Chiefs are a game and a half clear of Denver with the head-to-head banked, and when we ran the rest of the season Kansas City won the AFC West in nearly every simulated year. The division race is over in the model's eyes. The conference race is not: Pittsburgh at six percent, Jacksonville at 8.5 and Baltimore at three and a half are the teams between the Chiefs and the Super Bowl.
The next month is three road games and a home game the model likes. A trip to Seattle at 80 percent, a trip to Denver at 78, the Jets at home at 68, and a trip to Atlanta at 50. When we ran that stretch Kansas City went 3-1 more often than anything else, and the Atlanta game is the only one the model treats as even. An 8-1 record entering the second week of November would push the projection toward 14 and the title odds toward Detroit's.
The Chargers game was the only one the Chiefs played in the fortnight and it was a 22-6 win in which the defense held Los Angeles to two field goals. The model gave Kansas City 62 percent. The move in the projection came from the bye as much as the game: the new weighting looked at five games of a defense that has allowed 16.6 a game and a 2025 defense that was nothing like it, and chose the 2026 version. The points-allowed projection dropped 44 in two weeks, the second-largest defensive upgrade of any team in this run behind Green Bay, and the Chiefs went from the 14th-ranked defense to the second. Karlaftis' sack projection nearly doubling is the single largest individual move on the roster. The offense was already priced; Walker's projection rose 233 yards and five touchdowns, and he is now the model's rushing leader by a distance, but Mahomes' line barely moved. Rice remains out, and his absence is in the projection. What moves the number from here is January, not November. The model has Kansas City favored in three of its next four by wide margins and even in Atlanta. The 17.5 percent title chance is built on a 38-sack pass rush holding up against Jacksonville, Pittsburgh and Baltimore in the postseason, and the model has priced that as the one thing the Chiefs have not yet proved.
The matchup record is a team that has beaten every number put in front of it. We gave Kansas City 34 percent against Denver, 48 against Indianapolis, 80 in Miami, 70 in Las Vegas and 62 against the Chargers. Five wins from under three expected is two wins ahead, among the five largest overperformances in the league, and the Chiefs have done it with a roster the model now rates as the second-best in football. The market opened Kansas City at eleven and a half wins. Our model sat three under it in July and sits two over it now. The lean is a defense the model finally believes and a running back on pace for 1,900 yards. The pass rush is the one thing left to argue about.
