Kansas City Chiefs: How They Can Beat Other AFC Teams in Playoffs

The Kansas City Chiefs have wrapped up a memorable regular season with the number one overall seed. After finishing 12-4, Kansas City looks to defend their home turf in what seems to be a wide open AFC race to the Super Bowl.

As we all know, Arrowhead Stadium hasn’t exactly been the toughest place to play over the last 20 years or so in the playoffs, but this year feels different for the Kansas City Chiefs and I’ll explain why.

When you start breaking down the other teams in the AFC, you begin to realize just how flawed everyone is. From top to bottom, there is no clear-cut favorite so let’s break down each team individually and see how the Chiefs can beat each one of them in the playoffs.

New England Patriots (11-5 record, 2nd overall seed)

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have such a “been there, done that” mentality that you can almost expect them to get to the AFC championship for the 13th time, and eighth time in a row (2011-2017).

However, since 2001 they’re just 3-4 on the road overall in the playoffs and just 1-3 since 2006, losing all three Conference Championship games to Peyton Manning.

The Patriots this season look like an aging, slow team that has benefited from a terrible division and an amazing head coach. The Chiefs were able to hang 40 on them in their house back in week seven and there is no reason to think that the Chiefs couldn’t do the same to them in Arrowhead.

If the Chiefs and Patriots do meet for a trip to the Super Bowl, the advantage is in the favor of Kansas City. Arrowhead has not been kind to Tom Brady in the past and with a raucous crowd behind that pass rush, you could easily see the Chiefs handling business against the aging quarterback.