The Kansas City Chiefs all of a sudden look like the Kansas City Chiefs again. After a regular season of struggles on offense, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes displaying the patience of a saint to not light up his receivers no matter how inexcusable the mistake, those receivers are coming good in the most critical time: the playoffs.
Playoff Mahomes is already legendary, and this is the best Chiefs defense he has ever played with. Kansas City is right back where they always are in the Mahomes era — the AFC championship game and vying for another Super Bowl.
It’s difficult to overlook the two opposing teams they have overcome in this recent resurgence.
It’s not that the Miami Dolphins or Buffalo Bills are bad — they combined for 23 wins this season — but they were both destroyed by injuries on defense by the time the Chiefs got to them. Injuries aren’t created equal. Overall quantity doesn't matter as much as who those players are and how many are at the same position. Each injury at the same position group sends a team deeper and deeper into the bench, with depth often being one of the most difficult things for even good rosters to manage.
Miami’s top three edge rushers this season in total pressures were Bradley Chubb, Andrew Van Ginkel and Jaelan Phillips. None were available for the wild-card game against the Chiefs. Instead, the team started Melvin Ingram, who debuted with the Dolphins in Week 16, and Emmanuel Ogbah, making his second start of the year.
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