How the AFC West changed, and KC Chiefs’ reaction: ‘We’re not crawling under the desk’

Get the right quarterback-and-coach combination in place, and NFL divisions can work like old world dynasties. One group can beat back all challengers and dominate over time.

So it’s been for the Chiefs, winners of six straight AFC West titles with the quarterback combination of Patrick Mahomes and Alex Smith and head coach Andy Reid at the helm. It’s the NFL’s longest current division streak and the longest in division history.

The Chiefs’ seven straight playoff appearances also leads the NFL. Next on the list? Three teams with three apiece. Add in the Chiefs’ four straight AFC Championship Game appearances, and what sounds like a broken record to the rest of the AFC West is beautiful music to Kansas City.

Well, this offseason the rest of the AFC West screamed enough is enough and went all-in to topple the team that’s won the division by an average of 2.3 games since 2016.

If the Chiefs are supplanted, March 14 will be identified as the starting point of the week that changed the division.

Over the next several days but starting on that date, each team engineered a blockbuster trade: quarterback Russell Wilson joined the Denver Broncos; outside linebacker Khalil Mack went to the Los Angeles Chargers; and wide receiver Davante Adams joined the Las Vegas Raiders.

The contenders didn’t stop there. Also headed to the AFC West as free agents are defensive end Chandler Jones to the Raiders and cornerback J.C. Jackson to the Chargers.

That’s 25 Pro Bowls’ worth of talent transferring into the division ... and altering the Chiefs’ ambition not one bit.

“Whenever you build a culture like we’ve built, your first goal is go out there and win the AFC West,” Mahomes said. “We go in with the mindset the division is going to be tough, because it’s tough every year. Obviously it’s elevated this year.”

Chiefs bulked up

The Chiefs added players, too, right?

Well, yes, through the draft like everyone else, and with a couple of talented wide receivers — JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling — and safety Justin Reid, among other newcomers.

But the Chiefs’ departures are also notable.

A week after the Broncos, Raiders and Chargers made their stunning opening moves, the Chiefs traded one of the game’s most unique talents, wide receiver Tyreek Hill, to Miami. And as the weeks passed, it became clear they weren’t bringing back safety Tyrann Mathieu, who signed with New Orleans.

Hill and Mathieu were heart-and-soul guys critical to the Chiefs’ amazing run of success, a period of dominance that’s included two Super Bowl appearances and an NFL championship. Both players, Hill and Mathieu, moved out of Kansas City as difference-making stars were joining other teams within the division.

From a star-power standpoint, the balance of power was clearly changing. How much, to what degree, we won’t really know until the season begins. But no one sounds more up for the task, or confident about the future, than Chiefs coach Reid.

“You can take it as a badge of honor or crawl under the desk and be afraid,” he said. “My thing is, let’s go.”

About his team, he remains a believer: ”We’re not chopped liver out there,” Reid said. “We have some pretty good players. Let’s play.”

Building to win the division

Unseating the Chiefs begins with beating them, and their rivals have failed miserably at this task during the Chiefs’ run.

Reid arrived in Kansas City in 2013, a year after a 2-14 season in which the Chiefs went 0-6 against the division. But their fortunes started to swing with some success against the Raiders and Chargers. From 2013-15, before Mahomes and Hill arrived, the Chiefs went 5-3 in games against those two opponents.

But they still couldn’t crack the Peyton Manning Broncos. In their first meeting of 2015, the Chiefs’ losing streak against Denver grew to seven games after the Broncos returned a late Jamaal Charles fumble for a game-winning touchdown in prime-time at Arrowhead.

Kansas City had greatly improved under Reid. Quarterback Alex Smith led a playoff run in 2013 and the team posted a winning record the next year. But until the Chiefs could break through the Broncos, it seemed everybody was playing for second place.

Then it happened. On Nov. 15, 2015 at Denver, Manning made history with his first completion, passing Brett Favre to become the NFL’s career leader in passing yards. But just about everything else that happened that day was a disaster for one of the game’s greats. Manning was intercepted four times, finished with a zero passer rating for the only time in his career and was replaced in the third quarter by Brock Osweiler.

The Chiefs’ losing streak ended with a 29-13 triumph. The Broncos went on to win their fifth straight AFC West title and then won the Super Bowl in what became Manning’s final season.

But the process of passing the torch within the division had begun, and success against AFC West opponents has been the Chiefs’ rocket fuel ever since.

Since the 2016 season, the Chiefs are 31-5 against the Broncos, Raiders and Chargers combined. They haven’t lost on the road to the Chargers in that span and have won eight of their last nine against the Raiders. They also now have a 13-game winning streak against the Broncos; Mahomes made his first NFL start in the 2017 season finale at Denver.

Reid was asked if his early Chiefs teams were constructed to beat the best team in the division, similar to how the rest of the AFC West appears to be doing now with the Chiefs.

That’s not how it works, he said.

“I don’t think you measure against another team as opposed to measuring against all the teams,” Reid said. “You want to make sure that over the years, in evaluating these teams, (understanding) the level we need to be to be successful ... Then you go out and get those people.

“Some of it, there’s a little luck involved — how things fall in the draft, how your salary cap sits when you’re trying to get a free agent.”

Just the same, Reid realizes the magnitude of the accomplishment. He sensed something familiar that day at Denver’s Sports Authority Field at Mile High in 2015.

“They had gotten after us pretty good,” Reid said of the Broncos. “I remember being in Philly, we went through that with the Giants. In Green Bay, we went through that with the Cowboys.

“You finally beat the ones that have pounding on you, it’s like getting in fights with your brother and all the sudden you whoop him. That’s pretty good.”

The case for each AFC West team

Each AFC West team tells a different story.

The Broncos have floundered since their last Super Bowl season. Their current six-year playoff drought is the longest since the organization reached the postseason for the first time in 1976. They’ve run through three head coaches and 10 quarterbacks have started at least one game for Denver since 2016.

Landing Wilson, who will turn 34 this season before the Broncos meet the Chiefs, was a bold but costly stroke. Denver gave up five draft picks and three players, including quarterback and Lee’s Summit native Drew Lock.

“We’re here for one thing,” Wilson said in Denver on the day he was introduced, “and that’s to win. I’m excited about the journey. So Broncos country, let’s ride.”

History supports the notion that the Broncos are on the verge of a turnaround. The organization’s finest moments were delivered by two Hall of Fame-level quarterbacks — John Elway and Manning. Wilson is headed in that direction, too.

Who knows how the division might look today if Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski had signed with the Raiders two years ago, a possibility that was revealed in recent weeks.

But Las Vegas made a splash this year by obtaining Adams from the Packers and then giving him the biggest contract ever paid to a wide receiver (until Hill and the Dolphins topped it a few days later). Adams should improve the Derek Carr-led offense and help the Raiders keep up with the Chiefs on the scoreboard.

The Raiders have surrendered at least 28 points in every game they’ve played against Mahomes-led teams. In two meetings last year, they gave up 41 and 48 to the Chiefs.

Of the three division challengers, Raiders, Broncos and Chargers, the Chargers may be in the best position to dent the Chiefs’ AFC West supremacy. They’re the only team in the AFC West with a quarterback still playing under his rookie contract, and Justin Herbert has won both of his starts in Kansas City.

Talent abounds on the Chargers, who made their biggest moves on defense, obtaining Mack and Jackson and making Derwin James Jr. the league’s highest-paid safety.

The case for the Chiefs

Most sportsbooks continue to favor the Chiefs to win the division.

Having the most experienced coach, the most successful quarterback, a game-changing tight end in Travis Kelce and other assets has tipped a scale that takes into account not only the expected improvement of the other teams, but the division schedule.

As has been the case for the previous five years, the Chiefs play a “first-place” schedule. They’ll meet the same teams as the Chargers, Raiders and Broncos — except two. The Chiefs also must play a couple of first-place teams from other divisions: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals.

Schedule strength hasn’t mattered much in recent seasons, but if the division tightens up, the Chiefs’ more difficult path could make a difference.

The first major indicator of how the AFC West might be won this fall comes early in the season. Week 2 opens with a Thursday night game featuring the Chargers at the Chiefs. L.A. walloped the Chiefs at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium last season and has taken three of the last four in Kansas City.

But the Chiefs have won when it has mattered most, and that’s been enough to get them to the top six times and counting. You can almost see Reid beckoning.

“Let’s go play, that’s what you want,” he said. “You want that challenge. I love that part.”