Bellus’ Betting Breakdown: Why I Bet the Chiefs to Miss the Playoffs

Look, I get it.

You didn’t like the headline, but come on. Give me a chance. 

Since Patrick Mahomes took over in Kansas City, the Chiefs have four-straight divisional titles, won a Super Bowl and appeared in another. 

When you include the playoffs, this franchise is a remarkable 57-16 under Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid since 2018. 

And in a league where a quarterback and head coaching can take you far, it’s no surprise to see the Chiefs listed right near the top of the Super Bowl favourites. 

At +950, only the Buffalo Bills (+650) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+750) have shorter odds than Kansas City to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in February. 

They also possess one of the highest win totals of any team in the league at 10.5. 

However, everything I see about this team points to trouble, and I think for the first time in his career, Patrick Mahomes will miss the playoffs. 

TOUGH SCHEDULE, HARD DIVISION

Six of the Chiefs' first eight games this season will come against teams that made the playoffs last season. 

The other two come against two teams that each won nine games in 2021 and missed the postseason by one game. 

Things get a bit easier for Kansas City in the second half of the year, with meetings against Houston, Jacksonville and Seattle. 

However, the end of their schedule is no joke and would challenge even the best and deepest rosters in the league. 

Four of the Chiefs’ final six games come within the AFC West, a division that is arguably the deepest we’ve seen in quite some time. 

Three of those final divisional games will also come on the road, a place where three of Kansas City’s four regular season losses came in 2021. 

According to Warren Sharp Football, the Chiefs have the hardest strength of schedule this season based on their Vegas forecasted win totals. 

KC Win total

There’s no way to sugar coat things, it’s a hard schedule and the AFC West is a huge reason why. 

Every team in the division won at least seven games last season. 

They all made big moves in the offseason to improve. 

The Los Angeles Chargers (9-8 last season) made two huge additions on defence, beefing up the pass rush with Khalil Mack, and adding Pro Bowl cornerback J.C. Jackson to the secondary. 

The Denver Broncos (7-10) have been missing one key piece since Peyton Manning retired in 2015: a quarterback. The addition of Russell Wilson should solve that issue. 

And the Las Vegas Raiders (10-7) brought in one of the best receivers in the game by trading for Devante Adams. Adding him to a team that won 10 games last season – despite struggling to score at times – should help. 

LOSING TYREEK HILL / AN AGEING KELCE 

How does a franchise replace the impact and threat of Tyreek HIll? 

Hill led the team with 159 targets, 111 receptions, and 1,239 yards in 2021, and matched Travis Kelce with a team-high nine touchdown grabs. 

And when he was traded to Miami this off-season, questions about how the team would fill that void began. 

While the idea of Marquez-Valdes Scantling and JuJu Smith-Schuster seems nice, and the breakout potential of second-round pick Skyy Moore is intriguing… These names don’t introduce fear into a defence like Hill can do. 

Losing his speed in this offence feels like the ultimate X-factor. How does it affect the coverage Travis Kelce gets and how do JuJu and MVS fill those shoes?

Speaking of Kelce, he’s now another year older and will more than likely need to play an even bigger role in the offence to help the loss of Hill. 

The tight end will be 33 in October, the same age that Rob Gronkowski retired at. 

He’s also entering year 10 of his career, is on the heels of his worst season since 2017 and doesn’t have history on his side. 

Many great tight ends before him have failed to fully produce once they hit age 33. 

Tony Gonzalez had 1,058 yards his age-32 season. He played another five seasons after and never reached the 1,000-yard mark again. 

While I won’t sit here and list every tight end stat possible, just know something similar can be said about Shannon Sharpe, Jimmy Graham and Jason Witten.  

The other question about losing HIll is what will it do to the redzone offence? 

Hill was amongst the league leaders in redzone stats, and led the team in 2021 with his 32 redzone targets, resulting in 20 receptions and seven touchdowns. 

The Chiefs converted for touchdowns on 62 per cent of their redzone opportunities last season, a number that had them among the top teams in the league. 

While I’m worried about how the offence will look, I still trust Mahomes to find ways to move the ball, however his defence might be too much to overcome this season. 

WHAT WILL THE DEFENCE LOOK LIKE?

A defence that just keeps getting worse lost key pieces this summer, and failed to fill holes in important parts of the unit. 

Tyrann Mathieu, Charvarius Ward and Melvin Ingram are all gone. And they’ve been replaced by… not much. 

Kansas City’s pass defence has taken a nosedive since 2019. 

That year, they ranked sixth against the pass, in 2020 that number jumped to 12. 

Their defence continued to plummet last season, ranking 24th in total defence, and 22nd against the pass. 

While the Chiefs struggled mightily at times last year on defence, they were able to clutch up and make stops when needed, allowing them to win games. 

Kansas City ranked seventh in redzone defence last year, and 10th in third-down defence. 

While we can’t just assume regression to the mean for those two key areas of the game, their makeup on defence this season leads me to believe a drop-off is coming. 

Last season, the Chiefs ranked first in money spent on their defence. 

As of early August, they rank 18th in total salary on that side of the ball, while only one team in the entire league is spending less money on their cornerbacks and they rank 30th in salary at the linebacker position. 

With lots of new faces all around the offence and defence, it wouldn’t shock me to see the Chiefs struggle with their hard schedule out of the gate. 

And with the backend of their schedule being no joke, this season seems like the perfect storm for Kansas City to miss the playoffs.