Are Chiefs in trouble? Could they miss playoffs? Projecting remaining 2025 NFL schedule, teams to beat in AFC

Every dynasty must eventually come to an end. We're not quite there with the Kansas City Chiefs, who've appeared in each of the last three Super Bowls, plus five of the last six. But plenty are fairly wondering if the perennial contenders might finally be slowing down. Sunday's loss to the rival Denver Broncos, after all, didn't just mark an unusual drop to .500 for the once-vaunted Chiefs, but a potential forfeiture of the entire AFC West.

Losers of two straight thanks to Week 10's defeat at the hands of Bo Nix and the Broncos, the Chiefs are now squarely in third place in a division they've owned for the better part of the last decade. A 10th straight West title isn't impossible, but it feels increasingly like a fantasy as Denver (9-2) touts a formidable defense and the Los Angeles Chargers (7-4) boast at least a small cushion of their own in the wild-card race.

How bad are things in Kansas City, really? Is the 5-5 start truly an indication the Chiefs are in trouble? Should Arrowhead faithful be concerned about the team's chances of even returning to the playoffs? Let's unpack.

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What's wrong with the Chiefs?

You don't go 5-5 without a slew of issues -- some big, some small, often crossing over and compounding. But the chief concern (pun intended) in Kansas City is this: They're just not finishing. It's an odd thing to say about the Chiefs, considering coach Andy Reid's AFC powerhouse has basically been synonymous with clutch endings. But after going 11-0 in one-score games in 2024, this group is a deflating 0-5 in the same scenario this year.

That doesn't fall on one person. Rather, it speaks to the streakiness of the entire operation. Patrick Mahomes has rediscovered his eye for the deep ball. He's also completing passes at a lower rate (64.5%) than at any other point in his career as a starter. Rashee Rice, Tyquan Thornton and others have flashed with splash plays. Yet 36-year-old Travis Kelce is the only player with more than 40 catches. Meanwhile, on special teams, longtime kicker Harrison Butker already has more combined field goal or extra-point misses (7) than he did a year ago.

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Brad Crawford

What happened? What changed?

The Chiefs' 2024 season should've been a clue that this was coming. And maybe even the 2023 season before that. Look, we're not going to pretend Kansas City didn't end up in the Super Bowl in both of those campaigns (and win one of them!). But the Chiefs' title contention of the last few years was so incredible in part because it felt so unsustainable. Once a rip-roaring video-game attack under Reid's direction, the Mahomes-led offense has lately relied more on interchangeable parts -- and Mahomes' crunch-time savviness, plus Spagnuolo's similarly clutch defense -- to win on the margins rather than explosively dominate opposing teams.

The problem is, the margins are still razor-thin, and the Chiefs haven't risen from "really scrappy" to "genuinely special." Mahomes is Mahomes on most Sundays. But his ground support consists of an aging Kareem Hunt and oft-bruised Isiah Pacheco sharing touches, or Mahomes himself scooting off to run it himself. Reid's unit is still controlling the ball reasonably well, but the ball movement remains quite scattershot, as it was for much of the last two seasons, when Mahomes was forced to spread the rock to countless fill-in wideouts. Spagnuolo's "D," meanwhile, still registers as a top-10 unit but isn't applying a ton of pressure or forcing many turnovers.

There have been exceptions, yes, like this year's rout of the Detroit Lions. But there have been contrasting examples, too, like Super Bowl LIX, when the Chiefs' makeshift protection for Mahomes finally got exposed against a stellar defensive front and the Philadelphia Eagles rendered K.C. all but uncompetitive on the big stage. As ESPN's Bill Barnwell suggests, the 2025 Chiefs aren't all that different from the 2024 Chiefs, who finished 15-2, in terms of pure production ... but that's partly the issue: how much that group depended on last-gasp heroics.

What can be fixed?

For one, the Chiefs might consider curbing their appetite for the home run play. Everyone would rather watch Mahomes chuck it downfield, No. 15 included, but only six quarterbacks are throwing deep balls at a higher rate than Kansas City's three-time champion. As a result, the efficiency just isn't there. It may be boring, but without a proper run game, the Chiefs almost need the more conservative Mahomes to chip away at opposing clubs rather than risk surrendering the ball or setting up third-and-longs by looking for the kill shot too soon. Look no further than the Eagles who routed the Chiefs in the last Super Bowl; Jalen Hurts may be a consistent subject of debate for his un-pretty passing marks, but the one thing he excels at is controlling the ball en route to steady victory.

It's also much easier said than done, but juicing up the run game would also go a long way toward balancing the Chiefs' attack. Hunt and Pacheco are what they are. Is there any way for Reid to creatively integrate Brashard Smith or even Elijah Mitchell, the club's reserve ball carriers, as larger pieces of the puzzle? Or double down on the gadget-style touches for speedsters like Rice and Xavier Worthy? There is likely no magic door for K.C. to identify a workhorse in the mold of, say, the Eagles' Saquon Barkley of last season. But they need to try.

The best "solution," however, just might be the upcoming slate for the Chiefs, which bodes well for a quick turnaround in the standings.

Chiefs' remaining 2025 schedule

Indianapolis is currently ranked atop the AFC, and there's certainly a scenario where the dynamic Jonathan Taylor leads the Colts over the Chiefs, but Daniel Jones has proven shakier under center as of late. Dallas, meanwhile, is still working through a defensive transition after struggling mightily to slow the pass to open the year. Including the Cowboys, in fact, four of the Chiefs' final six opponents have a non-winning record. And three of them are inside the AFC West, giving Mahomes and Co. a legitimate chance to even things up in the division race.

There are complicating factors, of course, No. 1 being that three of the AFC teams ahead of the Chiefs in the wild-card picture -- the Chargers, Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars -- would own a head-to-head tiebreaker after beating K.C. earlier this year. But then the question becomes, do we trust teams like the Chargers and Jaguars to actually finish ahead of the Chiefs, however uneven they may be, come January? We tend to think that if the Chiefs continue to hang around their games as they have, that record in one-score contests will change in a hurry. Accordingly, here's our prediction for how the rest of their 2025 season will unfold:

Projection for Chiefs' remaining games

An 11-6 finish would likely put the Chiefs on the edge of the wild-card picture, but we like their odds of sneaking past the Jaguars, if not also the Chargers, to return to the postseason for the 11th straight year under Reid.