Kansas City Chiefs Schedule Analysis: Over/Under 9 Wins?

It's far too early to tell exactly how the Kansas City Chiefs season will play out.

The AFC West is wide open and every team thinks they could win it with a good season and Kent Babb of the Kansas City Star is setting a benchmark of 10 wins for the team, with anything less being a disappointment.

It's easy to say 10 wins is the expectation, but you also have to consider the opponents. Without considering the opponents it would be far too easy to set unrealistic expectations for a young team.

Since Babb completely left out any schedule analysis, we'll help him out.

The Chiefs have a chance to win 10 games in 2012, but it's just a little too optimistic based on the schedule.

Should-Win Games (5)

Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Carolina

If the Chiefs are to win 10 games in 2012, they will need to win these five games.

These teams are all rebuilding or otherwise flawed and losing one of these games would make the road to 10 wins more difficult. Two of the five are road games, with the toughest games in Buffalo in Week 2.

If the Chiefs aren't capable of taking care of weaker opponents, they can hardly be expected to win any of the few tough games on the schedule.

Each of these teams had fewer wins than the Chiefs last season, which means winning these games means merely keeping pace with any improvement from these teams.

Projected record: 4-1

Tough-Win Games (3)

New Orleans, Baltimore, Pittsburgh

These are the games that are against elite opponents.

All of these teams had 12 or more victories in 2012.

The Ravens did lose to the Jaguars, Titans and Seahawks in 2011 and the Saints lost the the Rams and the Buccaneers, so it's possible the Chiefs could grab a tough victory in one of these games to makeup for a couple letdowns against other teams.

Projected record: 1-2

Toss-Up Games (8)

San Diego, Oakland, Denver, Cincinnati, Atlanta

Anyone who has been around the AFC West for any period of time knows that it's a tough division.

The teams beat up on each other and last season every team in the AFC West was 3-3 against the division. It's not uncommon for teams in the AFC West to be between 4-2 and 2-4 in the division.

The division games are almost always a toss up.

In addition to the six division games the Chiefs will play Cincinnati and Atlanta, two playoff teams from last year.

The Bengals are a young team hoping to make a leap and the Falcons window could be closing, but either way these teams are quality opponents that the Chiefs can't look past.

In order to make the 10-win mark the Chiefs have to go 5-3 in these games.

That's either 3-3 in division games and wins against Cincinnati and Atlanta or 4-2 in the division, which would have to include one sweep of a divisional opponent and a split against Cincinnati and Atlanta.

Possible, but impossible to predict.

Based on last year's record, the Chiefs would probably be underdogs in all of these games even with the return of their three injured starters.

The Chiefs have a very good chance to surprise in 2012, but as long as Matt Cassel is the quarterback it is very hard to give them anything more than a split against these teams.

Projected record: 4-4

Overall Projection: 9-7

It's certainly possible for the Chiefs to win 10 games, but a 9-7 record could get the Chiefs into the playoffs and certainly wouldn't be a disappointing season.

The Chiefs could just as easily go go 5-0 against weaker opponents and 0-3 against tougher opponents, but ultimately it's how the Chiefs do in the division and against the Falcons and Bengals that could be the difference.

Of course, things change rapidly in the NFL and there is no telling if these tiers of opponents will remain true once the season arrives.

Buffalo and Carolina could surprise and the Falcons and Bengals could disappoint.

That's why the NFL is great, but as far as a benchmark for the Chiefs season, don't be disappointed with 9-7.