Column: The Chiefs’ Backups Lost in Week 18 Because They Didn’t Owe Anyone Anything

The Chiefs lost in Week 18. The Broncos are happy. The Bengals are sad. The NFL world is… furious? It’s time for a reality check.

Jan 5, 2025; Denver, Colorado, USA; Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (L) and tight end Travis Kelce (R) look on in the first quarter against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

The Kansas City Chiefs lost 38-0 to the Denver Broncos on Sunday, and nobody outside of Denver has any right to care.

The Chiefs sat their starters because they cemented their postseason fate on Christmas Day, the end point of a grueling stretch of three games in 11 days. By moving to 15-1 on the season, the Chiefs secured sole possession of the No. 1 seed in the AFC, which guaranteed the team a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. By the time Sunday’s game against the Broncos arrived, one AFC rival was more invested in the game than the Chiefs were.

The Cincinnati Bengals, sitting at 9-8, ultimately needed the Broncos to lose in Week 18 in order for Cincinnati to return to the playoffs. (The Miami Dolphins later fell to the New York Jets, paving the way for the Bengals’ weeks-long crawl back into playoff consideration, aside from the Broncos’ final domino.)

Frustration from Bengals fans is somewhat understandable, within reason. Chiefs fans from the pre-Andy Reid era know what it’s like to root for a team to get some help in order to back into the playoffs. The Bengals, of course, could have prevented this themselves.

In Week 1, the Bengals lost to the New England Patriots — yes, the team that just fired its head coach after playing their way out of the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. A win over the Chiefs in Week 2 would have changed the tenor of the entire AFC race. Really, any configuration of games that would have gotten the Bengals to double-digit wins would have been a lot more helpful than the Chiefs trotting out their veterans to jog through a game they earned the right to ignore.

Ultimately, this really isn’t about the Bengals. It’s about the way people talk about the Chiefs. Presumably respectable analysts are losing their minds. It’s an epidemic.

In the midst of the Chiefs’ regular season finale fizzle, Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN tweeted something so absurd that I genuinely thought it must have been coming from a parody account.

“The Chiefs taking a dive today is a lowlight of this NFL season,” Van Natta wrote. “Whether their incentive was only rest or also blocking the dreaded Bengals from the playoffs, it’s just a supremely bad look— and likely self-sabotaging— for a team hoping to three-peat. ‘America’s team?’ No.”

Truly breathtaking. Let’s break it down.

It’s only a “supremely bad look” for the panhandling Bengals and the rest of the AFC teams who couldn’t force the Chiefs to play a meaningful game in Week 18. The Chiefs won 15 out of 16 professional football games to secure the No. 1 seed. After all that, they should have acted against their own best interest for the sake of another team who they likely would have never met in the playoffs regardless? The No. 7 seed was always set for a first-round matchup with the Buffalo Bills. The Chiefs weren’t dodging the Bengals or trying to help them get in to challenge Buffalo. The Chiefs were doing what was best for the Chiefs. What a concept!

Here’s another whiff I wouldn’t expect from a serious thinker: “Whether their incentive was only rest or also blocking the dreaded Bengals…” What do you mean, whether? Van Natta suggests that the Chiefs intentionally took “a dive” in order to block the Bengals from the playoffs… unless they didn’t! Maybe it was just rest, he suggests! But either way, it’s bad? Why suggest this Bengals-based line of logic if you acknowledge that it may be entirely baseless? And if it’s not Bengals-based, WHY IS IT A BAD LOOK? (The dreaded Bengals’ last win over the Chiefs came in 2022, by the way.)

While we’re here: “likely self-sabotaging?” He’s suggesting that the Chiefs will now be worse-off because 35-year-old Travis Kelce didn’t get pummeled 25 times on Sunday for absolutely no reason? Yeah, man. Great take.

Hey, remember the Patriots?

On Sunday — the same Sunday that the Chiefs lost to the Broncos — the Patriots defeated the Bills because Josh Allen took one snap before handing the game over to Mitchell Trubisky and Mike White. In that game, as Joe Milton played quarterback for New England, the Patriots slid from the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft to No. 4. The Bills’ no-effort loss may have cost the Patriots a chance to draft a franchise-altering player at No. 1. Maybe New England would have traded down from No. 1, securing a team-changing haul of picks that would put them on a strong path to a rebuild. Eh, never mind. They’ll pick fourth. The Bills rested and nobody cared. Teams around the league altered lineups and workloads in hopes of being at peak shape when the playoffs arrive. Maybe I missed that discourse.

Van Natta didn’t tweet about those “lowlights.” (He did, however, tweet about his Pulitzers.) Most of the NFL world could not have cared less about how 31 other teams navigated their lineup decisions in the final week of the regular season, much like how most of the NFL world doesn’t care how 31 teams are refereed.

Winning brings a spotlight. For the Chiefs, that winning has also brought additional low-wattage beams of half-baked conspiracies and aimless frustration. On Sunday, in a blowout loss, all the Chiefs could do was ignore the lights and leave healthy. Beyond the box score, the Chiefs won again.