The Chiefs can't keep getting away with this.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: trailing in the fourth quarter, Patrick Mahomes heroically led the Chiefs down the field late for another comeback victory.
If that script sounds familiar, it's because it really should by now.
NFL fans have watched the same script play out over and over again this season and, seemingly, for years now.
Sunday night was mostly about defense. The Chargers were missing J.K. Dobbins and Ladd McConkey and were reduced to a fleet of weapons, including such luminaries as Gus Edwards, Kimani Vidal, Josh Palmer, Quentin Johnston and Stone Smartt. Neither team hit 300 yards or six yards per pass, with the stats relatively even both ways.
The Chiefs led 13-0 at the half, but the Chargers and their paucity of weapons stormed back to take a 14-13 lead, and then led 17-16 with under five minutes left when they kicked off to Kansas City.
You know what happened from there.
The Chiefs slowly chewed up turf and clock — 47 yards on 14 plays, under four yards a pop — and bled the clock down to its final seconds, and then Matthew Wright doinked a 31-yard field goal in at the buzzer to win the AFC West a ninth consecutive season.
Ho-hum, yet another late Kansas City escape. Did you really expect anything different?
The Chiefs are 12-1, two games clear of the AFC 1-seed. They're 10-0 in one-score games, tied for the best record in any season in NFL history.
Kansas City has two wins this season by more than one score. One came by 10 against a 49ers squad missing Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel. The other was close late against the Saints until Derek Carr got hurt and the Chiefs won by 13.
If you're looking for an impressive win on Kansas City's schedule this season, you won't find it.
It's actually 14 consecutive victories in one-score games now, including wins by three, seven and three in the playoffs earlier this year en route to a second straight Super Bowl ring.
Ho-hum, just the usual Chiefs shenanigans.
This week was the field goal doink. Last week, the Raiders were in position to win on a late field goal but botched a late snap. The previous week, Kansas City beat the mighty Panthers with a walk-off field goal.
Don't forget about the blocked 35-yard field goal against the Broncos to preserve a two-point victory on Nov. 10 — yes, that's three two-point victories in under a month.
The week before that, the Bucs drove the length of the field to tie the Chiefs with 27 seconds left and settled for an extra point and overtime, never touching the ball again.
Don't forget how this all started back in September.
The Chiefs won the season opener when Baltimore's Isaiah Likely was out of bounds by a millimeter. They beat the Bengals in Week 2 on a walk-off field goal after a questionable pass interference on fourth-and-long.
The call went the other way the next week in Atlanta to preserve a tight Chiefs win, and they trailed 10-0 against the Chargers the following game before another one-score victory.
We've been watching this movie on repeat all season.
This franchise has more sequels at this point than The Fast and the Furious.
The Chiefs are 12-1, but they have a point differential of only +56. An average Chiefs game this season ends in a 4.3-point Kansas City victory.
That's not nearly as dominant as you'd expect for a team with their record. For comparison, the Lions are also 12-1 but have a point differential of +183, with an average Detroit game ending in a 14.1-point win.
That's a massive difference. Kansas City has the worst point differential ever for a 12-1 team — by 33 points! Only one other 12-1 team in the past four decades was below +100 and that came all the way back in 1990 … by two points.
History says one-score games tend to be mostly coin flips, results that regress toward 50% over time. The Chiefs are 10-0 in one-score games. The odds of flipping heads on a coin 10 straight times are 1-in-1,024.
What if those coins had landed the other way? Can you even imagine what the standings would look like?
Lucky for you, you don't have to imagine.
In some alternate universe, where every one-score result came out opposite, the Chiefs are the worst team in the NFL at 2-10, in line for the No. 1 pick in the draft.
Joe Burrow is the MVP in that league, Bears fans are much happier and Sean Payton is the runaway Coach of the Year.
And the Chiefs aren't just bad. They're terrible — worst in the league.
Of course, going 0-10 in one-score games would be just as unlikely as going 10-0. Make the Chiefs 6-4 in those games, slightly better than a coin flip since since a star QB tips the end-game scales a bit, and Kansas City is at eight wins, right in the heart of that AFC Wild Card race — and if we're being honest, right about where it feels like this team really should be.
Nobody thinks the Chiefs are a two-win team, but good luck finding a metric that backs their record.
Kansas City ranks eighth in season-long DVOA, and that's after rising four spots this past weekend. The Chiefs are 14th in Weighted DVOA, which takes recent games into account more heavily.
The Chiefs rank ninth in season-long EPA, with a once-vaunted defense now effectively league average.
ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) is a bit more generous, slotting the Chiefs sixth.
Those metrics all think the Chiefs are good! They're just more generic playoff good, like the Steelers or Bucs. They're about as good as the 49ers in those metrics, only without the season from hell.
How do you feel about betting a team like the Steelers or Bucs week to week? How would you bet them if they were suddenly an overwhelming favorite to be the 1-seed, at 69% projected at FTN?
Bettors should start here: now is NOT the time to be investing in Chiefs futures.
Look, if you want to bet on Mahomes to win MVP at +4000 (DraftKings), I won't stop you. If Kansas City's luck lasts one more month and the Chiefs finish 16-1 and top the AFC by three of four games, you're sure voters wouldn't just give Mahomes MVP by default?
Kansas City can't go 17-0, but so close to the end of the regular season, you're forgiven if you want to bet on positive-outlier regular-season results. Regression doesn't happen all at once, if at all.
But the coin-flip results and regular-season record are all wiped clean when the playoffs start. And even if the Chiefs are the 1-seed when we get there, the underlying numbers say Kansas City's postseason betting odds are badly overinflated.
The Chiefs are priced at -210 to reach the AFC Championship Game at ESPN Bet, implied 68%. That might make intuitive sense since a 1-seed is just one home win away, but the Chiefs aren't the 1-seed yet and FTN has Kansas City worse than a coin flip at 47% to make the AFC title game.
It gets worse from there.
The Chiefs are +210 at FanDuel to win the AFC, implied 32%. FTN makes them 23% likely.
Kansas City is +500 to win the Super Bowl at most books. That's an implied 17%, more than double as likely as FTN's 7.8% projection.
All those wonky regular season wins — and a bit of Mahomes folklore and history — have left the Chiefs badly overpriced in the market, so overpriced there basically has to be value elsewhere.
So how do we fade Kansas City going forward?
Well, you can start by looking to fade the Chiefs against the spread (ATS) week to week.
Kansas City has lost seven straight times ATS, despite going 6-1 straight up. On Sunday, the Chiefs failed to cover the -4.5 spread but won anyway. A typical same-game parlay of a moneyline favorite and an underdog +4.5 cover would be about a +400 hit.
But that's threading the needle pretty tight from a game-to-game basis, and books are slowly adjusting the Chiefs down a touch from week to week.
What about big picture?
In the regular season, the best way to fade the Chiefs is to decide first who you like in the huge Bills-Lions game this week.
If you like the Bills, you should bet Buffalo to be the AFC 1-seed at +450 (BetMGM).
Buffalo is two games behind Kansas City, but that's effectively one game, since the Bills won the head-to-head. If the Bills beat the Lions, they'll have a great chance of winning out.
The Chiefs play the Browns, Texans, Steelers and Broncos — three of the four on the road. Lose twice and Buffalo is the 1-seed in that scenario. FTN has the Bills at 24% to grab the top seed, and that's before beating the Lions.
There's slight value on Pittsburgh to be the 1-seed too at +1800 (ESPN Bet), especially since the Steelers can beat the Chiefs head-to-head on Christmas Day.
If you think the Lions beat the Bills, your move is betting Detroit at +135 to finish with the most wins in the NFL at DraftKings.
Detroit is already tied with Kansas City at 12-1, so that bet cashes with split odds if the season ended right now. If the Lions beat the Bills, Detroit would be in great position to finish with the best record. Heck, the Lions control their destiny even if the Chiefs win out.
That bet is especially valuable at DraftKings, since the Lions are priced close to a coin flip at most books and odds-on favorites at -105 at BetMGM. If you prefer a spicier bet and lean Buffalo over Detroit, you might think about the 11-2 Eagles for best record at +550 (BetMGM).
So that's your regular season angle. What about the postseason?
Kansas City is so overpriced among AFC playoff contenders that the move is actually quite simple: pick your favorite AFC contender and invest in their futures.
Do you like the Texans? The Chargers? Can I interest you in the Steelers or Ravens? The Chiefs are eating up so much of the implied AFC odds that there's at least some value on just about everyone else.
The Bills may be the exception since they're priced so short already and just lost valuable ground in the race for the 1-seed with that incredible 44-42 loss to the Rams.
I'd rather invest in another AFC team that I still think might be as good as either the Bills or Chiefs.
The Ravens were the first victim of Kansas City's run on luck this season, way back in Week 1.
Like the Chiefs, the Ravens have also played in 10 one-score games. But unlike Kansas City, the Ravens haven't gotten outlier luck. They're 5-5, right where the coin would expect, leaving Baltimore 8-5 on the season, that same mark it feels like the Chiefs should be.
Baltimore lost by a toenail to the Chiefs, then lost on a failed two-pointer to the Steelers. The Ravens also led late against both the Raiders and Browns before giving those games away.
You might think these sort of results are in a team's DNA — the Ravens are choke artists and the Chiefs are clutch — but only one team wins the Super Bowl, and every team looks a lot like a choke artist, right up until they aren't. Heck, just Google what everyone thought about Andy Reid before he lucked into Mahomes seven years ago.
The Ravens are good — like really, really good. Their offense is great — historically great.
All those metrics that think the Chiefs are more good than great also think the Ravens are as good as any team in the NFL. The pass defense is leaky but improving. Justin Tucker can't hit the broad side of a barn but the yips can disappear as quickly as they come.
Baltimore's offense ranks as the best in the league, the run defense is great and the coaching is elite. Two-time MVP Lamar Jackson is somehow playing the best ball of his career, and now the Ravens have the ultimate closer in Derrick Henry, who's historically played his best late in the season when he rumbles right through worn-down opponents.
Those goofy regular-seasons losses count against Baltimore, but they're also buying bettors value. If the Ravens played the Chiefs tomorrow in the playoffs, they're not an 8-5 team visiting a 12-1 one. They're just a really good team with a full package built to win a variety of ways against any team in the league.
The Ravens aren't even favored to win the AFC North thanks to those blown games, though we'll see how the Steelers hold up against a closing stretch of the Eagles, Ravens, Chiefs and Bengals.
Baltimore could still win the division and even get to the 2-seed, but the Ravens will probably have to win a road game or three to make the Super Bowl. Good thing they have an awesome QB and the best winter RB in modern football history.
Don't sell yourself short betting the division odds. Baltimore doesn't need a division title to make a run, and if you're right about the Ravens winning the AFC North, they're all that more likely to go on a postseason run.
The Ravens are 22% to win the AFC at FTN. They're almost 12% there to win the Super Bowl, third best in the league and better than anyone else in the AFC — including the Chiefs.
That means value on Baltimore to win the AFC at +475 at ESPN Bet, an implied 17%, and it's even more value on a +1100 Super Bowl ticket at DraftKings, implied 8.3%. That ticket is almost 40% more valuable than it's being priced, and that's the ticket I'm grabbing.
The Ravens are rested off a late bye, ready to hit the home stretch and that ticket could quickly gain value if the Chiefs or Steelers fade down the stretch and open the path further.
The Chiefs can't keep getting away with this.
They truly can't, and that means there's value elsewhere with Kansas City overpriced in the market.
Pick your poison, and dive in.
