Stars Aligning for Chiefs to Have a Miracle Season

Alex Smith has led the Kansas City Chiefs to an 9-0 start to the season.

The Kansas City Chiefs should serve as inspiration for every team in sports having a difficult year. Can a season be worse than going 2-14 and having one of your players commit murder and then shoot himself in the head in front of the head coach and general manager a couple of days before playing a game? Yes Jacksonville Jaguars, things could be worse.

But for all of the pain the Chiefs suffered through last season, the karma pendulum has swung back the other way. The Chiefs are 9-0. Admittedly, their schedule has not been the most difficult in the NFL, but these are still pro football teams they are beating. With the eyeball test, there are not too many who would take the Chiefs to win the AFC West over the Denver Broncos. The Chiefs get by teams by a few points while Denver trucks them by several touchdowns.

But the Broncos lost an emotional Sunday Night game to the Indianapolis Colts a couple of weeks back to drop a game behind the Chiefs. And while on the bye week this past weekend, their head coach, John Fox was hospitalized with a heart condition. He will be out for four to six weeks. Not having the head coach will not make the Broncos better. Just ask New Orleans Saints fans about that. While you hate to see someone have an unfortunate medical issue that forces him to miss work, these things do happen. And sometimes a team like the Chiefs can put themselves in position to take advantage.

With Fox out, suddenly the Chiefs winning the AFC West doesn’t seem so far fetched. They will meet Denver twice, once on Nov 17 and again on Dec 1, both presumably with Jack Del Rio as head coach. While Del Rio has head coaching experience with the Jaguars, most of it was not winning. Sandwiched in between the two Chiefs games, the Broncos will face the New England Patriots on the road. That is never easy. The way it looks now, the Chiefs have to be the favorite to win the West. Should that happen, they are most likely going to be at home throughout the playoffs while Peyton Manning and the Broncos will be on the road.

The Chiefs have their bye week this week so they will get two weeks to get ready for the Broncos. Denver will be at the San Diego Chargers this week. The Chiefs have San Diego sandwiched in between the two Denver games then has the Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders following the second Denver game. Looking at that schedule, if the Chiefs split with Denver they should have a two-game lead over Denver with only two games to play.

So in reality, the Chiefs have to be a favorite to make it to the Super Bowl in the AFC. It is far from a gimme with teams like the Broncos, Patriots and Colts to beat in the post-season, but these Chiefs have a team that may have destiny on their side. Sometimes that is just to hard to stop.