Push Week 5 Aside: This Is a Different Chiefs Team Now
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Leading up to Sunday's Divisional Round matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, many fans and media members alike have been looking back to the Week 5 meeting between both teams. That night, the Bills defeated the Chiefs by a final score of 38-20 in a game that wasn't all that close at all. Under consistent circumstances, expecting a similar outcome could be reasonable.
The circumstances of the 2021 season have been everything but consistent, though.
The Chiefs are a perfect example of that, as they began the 2021 campaign with a 3-4 record before remarkably wrapping up the regular season as the conference's No. 2 seed. In that drubbing at the hands of Buffalo back in October, Kansas City was a lost team. The Chiefs have found themselves now — so much so that in January, flashing back to the past means very little in terms of what it can do for Buffalo now. Nick Fierro of Bills Central joined me on today's Roughing the Kicker podcast to discuss how much has changed between then and now.
Offensively, not a ton has changed throughout the year for the Chiefs personnel-wise. With that said, just over a month into the season when they faced the Bills the first time around, Patrick Mahomes was still getting used to his all-new offensive line. The unit was still figuring out what it had at the running back and wide receiver positions. Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy's group turned the ball over at a historically poor rate and didn't play sound football.
Now, it's back to humming along as a top attack in the league. While it's possible that the Chiefs' offense falls flat in the Divisional Round, the probability of it showing up with a big-time performance is high. Mahomes is smarter, his protectors are stout, ancillary weapons are stepping up and play-calling is becoming more and more dangerous. All of that matters, and not all of it was the case in the aforementioned Week 5 matchup.
Speaking of things that weren't necessarily the case, the Chiefs' defense has done a 180 since beginning the year as one of the worst units in NFL history. Players like Willie Gay Jr., Juan Thornhill and Frank Clark were either rehabbing from injuries or still finding themselves buried on the depth chart. Chris Jones and Charvarius Ward missed the first Chiefs-Bills game. Melvin Ingram wasn't a member of the team yet. Steve Spagnuolo's crew is responsible for one of the most impressive in-season turnarounds the league has seen in recent memory, and it didn't come to fruition until after Week 5. Bills star Josh Allen won't be attacking the same defense now that he was then.
All of this is a very long road to a short end: The NFL is a week-to-week league, and the 2021-22 Chiefs are a perfect example of that. Small wins add up over time, and Kansas City had plenty this season. Alterations to snap counts, internal improvement, a key external addition and even better turnover and injury luck have the Chiefs playing like a top-tier contender in January. That was the expectation back in October, but the team encountered a roadblock. Things are different now.
Is there still a remote chance that the Bills thoroughly defeat the Chiefs on Sunday? Sure. On the other hand, context and logic argue that Kansas City's chances of putting up one heck of a fight are legitimate. Crazy things happen in the NFL postseason and Kansas City is known for getting in its own way — especially this season. This appears to be a vastly altered version of the club the Bills saw in Week 5, and for the better. That October defeat only matters so much at this point in the season, when it's all about peaking at the right time. The Chiefs may be doing that right now.
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