The Kansas City Chiefs clinched a playoff spot on Black Friday in Week 13 by beating the Las Vegas Raiders. In Week 14, they can clinch the AFC West while maintaining their slim lead over the Buffalo Bills for the top seed in the AFC.
The Chiefs’ path is pretty simple this week. If they beat the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday Night Football, they will clinch the AFC West. Kansas City is only a 3.5-point favorite in their own building to the potentially playoff-bound Chargers, per FanDuel Sportsbook. They defeated LA in Week 4 by a score of 17-10 after the Chargers took a 10-0 lead into the second quarter but never scored again.
Chiefs AFC West clinching scenarios
If the Chiefs win, they move to 12-1 on the season, meaning the worst they could finish is 12-5. That would give the Chargers their fifth loss while the Denver Broncos already have five losses.
In a three-way tie, the Chiefs’ win over the Chargers would move their record vs the Chargers and Broncos to 3-0 in the common games tiebreaker and their overall division record to 5-0, so they’d clinch every AFC West tiebreaker.
- If the Chiefs win, they clinch
First-round bye clinching scenarios for the Chiefs
Following their loss to the Bills, the Chiefs won’t be able to clinch the one seed for a while. If both teams keep winning, it will go all the way to Week 18. The earliest it could happen is Week 16, but they’ll need a lot of help from Buffalo’s opponents.
AFC standings entering Week 14
1. x-Kansas City Chiefs (11-1)
2. xy-Buffalo Bills (10-2)
3. Pittsburgh Steelers (9-3)
4. Houston Texans (8-5)
5. Los Angeles Chargers (8-4)
6. Baltimore Ravens (8-5, win over DEN)
7. Denver Broncos (8-5, loss to BAL)
8. Indianapolis Colts (6-7)
9. Miami Dolphins (5-7)
10. Cincinnati Bengals (4-8)
11. Cleveland Browns (3-9, 3-4 AFC, SOV 19 wins)
12. New York Jets (3-9, 3-5 AFC, win over TEN)*
13. Tennessee Titans (3-9, 3-4 AFC, SOV 16 wins, loss to NYJ)
14. New England Patriots (3-10)* eliminated
15. Jacksonville Jaguars (2-10)* eliminated
16. Las Vegas Raiders (2-10)* eliminated
Note: In the three-way tie between Cleveland, New York, and Tennessee, the Jets are eliminated first because of a worse AFC record, then the Titans are eliminated because of their worse strength of victory. But the tiebreaker starts over after that, which is why the Jets’ win over Tennessee factors into the standings.
