NFL fans are convinced the Kansas City Chiefs deliberately lost their regular-season finale against the Broncos… in a bid to avoid facing the Bengals in the playoffs!
Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes and Co traveled to Colorado for their Week 18 matchup with little to play for and Andy Reid rested most of his big guns ahead of the postseason.
While there was little on the line for the reigning Super Bowl champions, the game did have huge implications elsewhere, with the Bengals on the outside looking in and hoping that Kansas City would do them a favor and stop the Broncos from winning.
Instead, the Broncos sealed their first playoff spot in eight years with a remarkable 38-0 victory over the Chiefs, who were 15-1 heading into the game.
The Bengals and the Chiefs have plenty of recent history, with Joe Burrow and Co beating KC at Arrowhead in the 2021 postseason their way to losing in the Super Bowl.
The following year, the Bengals again beat the Chiefs 27-24, before a remarkable game in the 2022 playoffs in which the Chiefs won after Harrison Butker kicked a 45-yard field goal with just three seconds left on the clock.
Patrick Mahomes could only watch on from the sidelines as the Chiefs were heavily beaten
Travis Kelce was also inactive as the Chiefs lost 38-0 for only their second defeat of the year
Fans claimed the Chiefs were scared to face Joe Burrow and the Bengals in the playoffs again
In 2023, the Bengals traveled to Arrowhead for the AFC Championship game and the build-up was dominated by trash talk, with Cincinnati cornerback Mike Hilton famously referring to the Chiefs’ stadium as ‘Burrowhead’.
At the time, Burrow was 3-0 in Kansas City, but he has since gone on to lose his last three appearances, the most recent of which an incredible 26-25 Chiefs win in September.
Fans are convinced that the Chiefs were keen to avoid a repeat of the match-up in this season’s playoffs, instead preferring the Broncos to enter the postseason.
Taking to X, former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III wrote: ‘Chiefs did everything they could to make sure the Bengals didn’t make the Playoffs. MY GAWD.’
Another fan added: ‘Chiefs knocking out the Bengals three years in a row’, while one said: ‘The Chiefs are scared of the Bengals! That’s why they rested their starters and let the Broncos win.’
Others disagreed, meanwhile, claiming that the Bengals had plenty of chances to seal their own fate, reminding others that they started the season 0-3, and then 1-5.
Trey Wingo wrote: ‘All the games count the same amount. Start better!’ in a pointed message to Cincinnati fans.
In the game in Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon, the second-string Chiefs were easily beaten with Carson Wentz as QB.
Bo Nix threw four touchdown passes and 321 yards of total offense in a remarkable display, with the Chiefs failing to score a TD for the first time this season.
The Broncos will now go on to face the Bills in Buffalo in next weekend’s Wildcard round, while the Chiefs have a bye ahead of the divisional series a week later.
Elsewhere, the Steelers take on the Ravens, and the Chargers play the Texans – with the Chiefs awaiting the winner.
The Kansas City Chiefs played a game on Sunday afternoon. To be honest, that’s about as much as anyone can confidently take away from Week 18 in terms of analysis. The starters were resting. The game plan was vanilla. The calls were conservative. The goal was to clearly just make it out as unscathed as possible.
The good news is that the Chiefs came out of Mile High as healthy as they went in, so perhaps the team had a righteous celebration for achieving exactly that in a 38-0 loss to the Broncos.
Broncos faithful will go to bed feeling good tonight about Bo Nix looking like the second coming of Peyton Manning after such a lopsided victory. They can also enjoy calling themselves a playoff team as they secured the No. 7 seed. Credit them for taking care of business when they needed to.
As for what we should take away from this for the Chiefs? We feel like we’d be irresponsible to not offer up at least some sort of quick-hitting thoughts, even as we basically shrug our way through the whole thing.
1. Jaden Hicks is legit
Even when tasked with vanilla assignments, even when set up to fail, even when surrounded by lackluster talent, there was no way to keep Jaden Hicks from looking better than everyone else around him on Sunday.
The Chiefs have a lot of youth at safety, so even as Justin Reid hits free agency, the Chiefs have playmakers to consider there—from Chamarri Conner to Bryan Cook —and others on the depth chart in the secondary are versatile enough to slide into safety roles. Hicks wasn’t a great need in the draft, but his inexplicable slide to the fourth round made him too rich of a target to pass up.
Now he’s looking like an anchor for the future in a young secondary that will love having such a dynamic playmaker in the back end for years to come.
2. Nikko had his moments
Mecole Hardman is poised to come off of the injured reserve list in the next couple of weeks if the Chiefs want, and at that point, Remigio becomes redundant. Both players are primary returners with rare offensive looks available to them. One is more trusted and a bit older, but Remigio was a preseason sensation who looked solid when tasked with more on Sunday.
We’re not sure that Reid and company are ready to abandon Hardman given his postseason experience for K.C. but we wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Remigio take over that role full-time in 2025.
3. Harrison Butker Worry-O-Meter is set up
Whether you find yourself quite worried or just shrugging your shoulders at questions about Harrison Butker’s reliability these days, there’s no denying that it’s now a talking point after watching him miss wide left on a makeable field goal.
Ever since he’s come back from injury, Butker has missed 2 of 5 field goals and an extra point. To give my two cents, I think the sample size is far too small to draw any conclusions and I’d trust Butker as much as ever in the postseason. But the discussion is already out there and there’s no way to rein it in. It’s Butker who has to do the talking once the Divisional Round starts.
4. Losing sucks (a good reminder)
Not going to lie, losing 38-0 is a bad feeling no matter which players are suiting up, and for those of us with memories of this franchise that go back considerably (to Christian Okoye’s playing days for me, personally), this loss feels like the sort of games that the Chiefs used to provide their fans on a regular basis. We’re glad those days are long gone but maybe it’s good to be reminded every once in a while.
5. Carson Wentz never had a shot
The Chiefs largely went with an offensive front of D.J. Humphries, Kingsley Suamataia, Hunter Nourzad, C.J. Hanson, and Wanya Morris up front against a very motivated Denver pass rush. The results weren’t pretty and it put Carson Wentz in a pickle from the outset of the game on Sunday.
That makes us feel bad for Wentz who had this one shot in front of a national audience to remind teams what he could do. Instead of having his time in the spotlight in an Andy Reid offense, he was forced to get rid of the ball in record time because pressure was coming from every direction at once.
If teams wondered what Wentz has left in the tank, the answers still aren’t clear even after this game. And anyone blaming Wentz for looking bad is pointing away from where they should be.
6. Joshua Uche sighting!
Not much to say here other than it was nice to see Joshua Uche given a chance to play actual football since the Chiefs did want to trade for him at one point not too long ago. We’re still not sure why he’s been stuck in the doghouse (or why the Chiefs traded for him in the first place if he was just going to sit), but it might be worth revisiting things going forward. Just a thought.
7. A quiet Leo
I’ll end on this note because if there’s one concern that I think more people should be focused upon it’s this one. I was hoping to see a bit more from Chenal when he wasn’t surrounded by Drue Tranquill or Nick Bolton and others—to see what he might do when given greater responsibility. Instead, he really didn’t stand out at all in a game in which the defense gave up 38.
Of course, we’ve already stated that this game is an outlier, but ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw Chenal’s dynamism at work consistently in a game? It feels like it’s been several games—as if the last month or so has worn him down.
It’d make sense to wonder if there’s a nagging injury but the Chiefs would not have given him so many snaps on Sunday in a meaningless game if Chenal were hurt. Instead it just seems like something isn’t clicking that was before.
When you recall just how dominant Chenal was last winter, you can only hope Chenal can get over any hiccups at the present moment and channel that ridiculous combination of burst and strength and agility when it’s time for the Chiefs to play again.
