The Chiefs and Chargers are both 11-3, tied for the best record in the AFC. The good news for the Chiefs is, they’ll win any tiebreaker between the two teams, so as long as they win out, they don’t have to worry about what the Chargers do.
The good news for the Chargers is, winning out won’t be easy for the Chiefs.
That’s because the next game on the Chiefs’ schedule is next Sunday night at Seattle, and the Seahawks are playing very good football right now. The Seahawks will likely be slight favorites in that game, and if the Seahawks are able to beat the Chiefs, that would mean the Chargers just need to win their last two (home against the Ravens and at Denver) to earn home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs.
The Chiefs could catch a break against the Seahawks because Seattle might not have anything to play for. Depending on how this week’s games go, it’s possible that the Seahawks will already be locked into the No. 5 seed in the NFC, and therefore could care more about protecting their top players than about beating the Chiefs.
But that seems unlikely, as Seahawks coach Pete Carroll has never rested his starters in the past, even when the Seahawks were heading to the playoffs and had nothing to play for in Week 17.
So it appears that we’ll see the Chiefs playing to win, and the Seahawks playing to win, in a game that might determine whether Kansas City earns home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, or whether Kansas City would need to win three straight road games in January to get to the Super Bowl.
