KC Chiefs: Win over Vikings important after AFC West goes 4-0 in week 9

The KC Chiefs won on a last second field goal on Sunday and the narrow victory proved to be even more important than we initially thought, as the other three teams in the AFC West also secured a victory.

The AFC West hasn’t been impressive this year, but the Kansas City Chiefs winning on Sunday afternoon was huge. Let’s check the standings now after the W.

Kansas City Chiefs (6-3)
Oakland Raiders (4-4)
Los Angeles Chargers (4-5)
Denver Broncos (3-6)

Yes, the Chiefs still have a two game lead (plus the head-to-head) over the second place Raiders, but had Harrison Butker not gotten that kick through the uprights, who knows how overtime goes. KC could have fallen and ended up at 5-4 and just one game up on Oakland.

More from Kansas City Chiefs

Three of the four teams played NFC North squads (Chiefs beat Vikings, Raiders beat Lions, and Chargers beat Packers) while the Broncos took care of business against the overhyped Browns. Denver did so with a quarterback who hadn’t started an NFL game before and hadn’t started a football game at all since he was in college several years ago.

While I’ll do my weekly post on what we learned about the AFC West on Tuesday, for now I’ll just say that it’s still glaringly obvious that the Chiefs are still the class of the division. Even with Matt Moore under center, the Chiefs have proven they can win without Patrick Mahomes, and that’s not something a lot of other teams can do; Win meaningful games without their franchise quarterback.

The AFC as a whole has been less than stellar and that’s why fans weren’t too panicked when it was announced Mahomes would miss a few games. Home field advantage is likely off the table for the Chiefs, but we’re seeing how good this team is, even without their star quarterback. Once they get their injured players back on the gridiron, it’s not unfathomable to think that this team could make it to the Super Bowl still.

As for the rest of the division, the Raiders could potentially make the playoffs. Their offense has looked pretty good, but their defense has a lot of question marks for sure. The Chargers have historically gotten off to slow starts and then gotten hot, so maybe that’s what we’re seeing with the Bolts now. With the Broncos, they were playing a Browns team who is an absolute dumpster fire, but winning with a new quarterback is impressive nonetheless.

The Chiefs winning this week was exciting for the obvious reasons, but continuing to stay ahead of the pack in the AFC West was the most important part of this victory.

Home/Kansas City Chiefs