KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Coming off a shocking loss to Denver last week, the Kansas City Chiefs battled Miami for midseason supremacy in the AFC.
A win would put the Chiefs in the driver’s seat to earn home-field advantage in the postseason.
A loss would have made the road a bit more rocky, but Kansas City needn't worry about that for now.
“We knew this was a battle for the first seed in the AFC, and we knew they were a good team,” safety Mike Edwards said. “They’ll be a playoff team. We might see them before the AFC Championship or might see them in the AFC Championship, but either way it goes, we’ll be ready for them again. We know they’ll be coming even harder coming off this loss.”
Aside from Super Bowl LV — when Kansas City played the Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, in a de facto away game — Patrick Mahomes has never played a true road playoff game.
Thanks to a 21-14 win against the Dolphins on Sunday in Frankfurt, Germany, Mahomes and company may not have to this season either in the quest for another Super Bowl appearance.
“We’re 6-2 sitting there with the Dolphins coming into this, knowing that they’re one of the better teams in the AFC,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid said. “So, I love the energy, the way our guys rebounded from that last game against Denver. All those things are so important to making up a good football team, and our guys did that.”
Four teams, including the Chiefs and Dolphins, entered the week tied atop the AFC with a 6-2 record.
Jacksonville and Baltimore also entered Week 9 tied atop the conference, but Kansas City and Miami had a slight edge with a 4-1 conference record. Both the Jaguars and Ravens were 4-2 against AFC teams.
That means the Chiefs, who improved to 7-2 and 5-1 in conference, are guaranteed to enter the bye week as the AFC’s projected top seed.
Kansas City also owns head-to-head wins against Jacksonville and Miami now, further solidifying its grip on the top seed.
The Chiefs control their own destiny in the race for that all-important top seed, which comes with the only first-round bye since the NFL expanded the playoffs to seven teams from each conference before the 2020 season.
“It was big," Reid said. "We have this bye week coming up and there’s nothing worse than going into a bye week with a loss, first of all, then an eight-hour plane ride on top of that. That doesn’t lead to good feeling.”
Kansas City is off next weekend. The Chiefs host Philadelphia in a Super Bowl LVII rematch Nov. 20 on Monday Night Football at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
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