Chiefs Can No Longer Be Ignored in the Crowded AFC Playoff Picture

You’ve seen the commercial roughly 200 times now during NFL Sundays. An older man slowly walks up to the top of a diving platform as his iPhone provides the background music for the ascent. Then he plunges, and there’s barely a ripple below after the unexpected moment of gracefulness.

That’s the Kansas City Chiefs’ 2016 season.

They don’t field many marquee names, especially on offense with running back Jamaal Charles likely out for the season and wide receiver Jeremy Maclin injured. Tight end Travis Kelce is reaching that level, though, and he finished with 140 receiving yards on eight catches during Sunday’s 29-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons.

They don’t light a fuse offensively with plenty of field-stretching deep heaves. Instead, their West Coast offense approach is mostly methodical and meandering.

And defensively, the classic football-ism of bending without breaking was made for the Chiefs. They’ll give up their share of chunk yardage, and they came into Week 13 averaging 381.9 yards allowed per game (28th).

So no, they won’t earn much extra credit for flare and fireworks. They don’t want any either. They want wins, and they keep getting them when the degree of difficulty is at its highest against some of the NFL’s toughest opponents.

In Week 12, the Chiefs squeaked out a critical overtime division win against the Denver Broncos, sliding into a much more favorable position in the battledome AFC West. The encore performance came Sunday against the Falcons.

The margin for error couldn’t have been thinner, with the Chiefs winning by a single point. The separation in such games can often come from one key play or one difference-making player.

For the Chiefs, that player was safety Eric Berry. And the play was his interception return on the Falcons’ fourth-quarter two-point conversation attempt.

Berry has high-level instincts and awareness for space. That’s not breaking news to anyone who’s watched the four-time Pro Bowler since he entered the league as a first-round pick in 2010. But his latest game-sealing trick was different.

The Falcons had just taken a lead and were trying to make it a three-point game with only four minutes, 32 seconds remaining. Berry sat in zone coverage and then dug in his heel to break quickly on a throw intended for Falcons tight end Austin Hooper.

About 100 yards later he was in the end zone after turning the Falcons’ two-point conversion attempt into two points going the other way. Which was cake icing on top of Berry's afternoon.

He was solely responsible for eight points during the Chiefs’ win over a division-leading team. The other six came on a second-quarter interception that was returned 37 yards. As ESPN noted, Berry put a large, bold exclamation point on his season when he raced across the goal line:

The out-of-town scoreboard offers the best perspective on the offensive outburst from a Chiefs defender. Berry, and Berry alone, outscored two other teams that played in the early block of games Sunday afternoon (the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins).

His efforts to erase Falcons scoring opportunities and then turn them into Chiefs points made him the hero Sunday. But the pouncing nature of the Chiefs defense is becoming a standard weekly staple of a team that’s now 9-3 and challenging for the AFC West division lead.

The Chiefs entered Sunday leading the league in takeaways with 24. They give up yards but then swarm and suffocate to keep numbers low where it matters most: the scoreboard.

That’s why the Chiefs lack sex appeal. There often isn’t an eye-popping element to their wins, though Kelce is trying to change that with his 349 receiving yards over the past three weeks (he finished with eight catches for 140 yards Sunday).

Instead, they grind away with a rushing attack that accounted for 123 yards against the Falcons at an average of 5.6 yards per carry. An effective ground game complements a damage-limiting defense well, and having Tyreek Hill—a dynamic young offensive threat and one of the league’s best returners—helps too.

Put it all together and quarterback Alex Smith doesn’t have the entire weight of a team on his arm. That doesn’t happen when he’s given quality field position, or even better, points while standing on the sideline. With two more coming Sunday the Chiefs are tied for the league lead in non-offensive touchdowns, according to ESPN Stats & Info:

Smith can bear that weight when asked, however, which is why the Chiefs need to be considered a legitimate contender in the AFC.

He’s often slapped with the game-manager label. That can come across as condescending, but there’s nothing wrong with being a careful, meticulous quarterback who minimizes mistakes.

Smith can still be that guy with only four interceptions in 2016 through 11 starts. But he’s also a steady and accurate presence who can strike quickly.

The signal-caller completed 84 percent of his pass attempts Sunday, and two of his 21 completions came on back-to-back 20-plus-yard deep lobs to Kelce during the Chiefs’ opening drive. That set up running back Spencer Ware’s three-yard plunging touchdown, and a rapid-fire response to the Falcons’ seven points on their first drive.

Smith’s numerous long-range connections pushed his per-attempt passing average to 10.8 yards against Atlanta. That's over four yards higher than his season average prior to Sunday.

“We’re so lucky to have him,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said recently, via BJ Kissel of Chiefs.com. “He’s so underappreciated.”

Scott Cunningham/Getty Images

It feels like the latter statement can apply to the entire team, too.

The Chiefs aren’t often mentioned alongside the other traditional AFC powerhouse teams like the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. But through a combination of defense, special teams, timely chunk plays and a dose of trickery (like the 55-yard fake punt touchdown by wide receiver Albert Wilson) they’re now only one game behind the conference-leading Patriots.

The Chiefs have reached that point after back-to-back road wins over the Falcons and Broncos. But the astounding source of sizzle comes when we take the wider view. Since Week 6 of 2015—when they started out 1-5—the Chiefs have won 19 of their last 22 regular-season games.

That’s not some turnover-induced fluke. It’s sustained winning by a team with the pieces to play deep into January.