Week 13 brought more clarity for two AFC West teams, and far more chaos for another. The Los Angeles Chargers kept themselves firmly in the playoff mix with a crucial win that pushed them to 8–4, while the Kansas City Chiefs watched their situation grow increasingly dire.
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Meanwhile, Denver continued its remarkable surge, extending its winning streak and strengthening its grip on the AFC’s top seed. Together, the Chargers’ and Broncos’ victories only tightened the vise around a Chiefs team rapidly running out of time.
For Kansas City, the developments elsewhere in the division only deepen the frustration. The Chiefs sit third in the AFC West, staring up at the red-hot Broncos and the playoff-positioned Chargers, while their own season teeters on the edge. Their Thanksgiving loss to Dallas didn’t just drop them to 6–6, it ripped away most of their margin for error. They now trail multiple teams in both overall record and head-to-head tiebreakers, making the math almost impossible unless they run the table.
Through Sunday night, Kansas City sits behind Houston and Pittsburgh in the wild-card race and finds itself effectively two games back of the Bills, Jaguars, and Chargers; all teams that have already beaten them this season. That means Kansas City can’t simply catch up; they need those teams to collapse. ESPN’s Nate Taylor put it bluntly: the Chiefs likely need to win all five remaining games, each one against an AFC opponent, just to sneak in as the seventh seed.
Patrick Mahomes acknowledged the reality that has begun to creep into the locker room: “At the end of the day, you’ve just got to win every game now — and hope that’s enough.”
All of this creates a surreal AFC landscape. Instead of the Mahomes-led Chiefs cruising atop the conference, they’re stuck outside the playoff picture while the Patriots and Broncos surge, and the Chargers and Bills occupy key wild-card spots. The AFC hasn’t looked like this in years.
If Kansas City does stumble again, the consequences will be historic. The last time the Chiefs missed the postseason was the 2014 season, a year before Mahomes even arrived and a year before the franchise transformed into a perennial Super Bowl contender. Since Mahomes became the starter, they’ve never failed to qualify. Now, entering the final stretch of 2025, they are closer to elimination than at any point in the Andy Reid era.
