Kansas City Chiefs Nothing More Than Fool's Gold in Loaded AFC

The Kansas City Chiefs just might be the best team in the National Football League that no one is talking about. After dispatching the Jacksonville Jaguars 19-14 in Week 9, the Chiefs sit at 6-2 despite injuries to a number of key players.

Head coach Andy Reid has the Chiefs well-positioned for their second straight playoff trip and third in the last four seasons.

But while the Chiefs may be well on their way to making the playoffs yet again, there's been nothing to indicate that this year's trip will be any different than 2015 or 2013, that while the Chiefs may be good enough to make the postseason, there's more to them than that.

The Chiefs didn't exactly rack up the style points Sunday against the Jaguars, but they did enough to eke out a five-point win despite starting their backup quarterback (Nick Foles) and third-string tailback (Charcandrick West).

As BJ Kissel of the team's website reported, head coach Andy Reid lauded his short-handed club's effort against the Jags:

"

It’s nice to be 6-2. We appreciate every one of them. They don’t give you any of these in the National Football League. The margin between winning and losing in this league is a minute, so as easily as you win that game, you could have lost. We knew we would have our hands full and have to battle for four quarters, and our guys did that. They fought all the way through.

"

In many respects, Reid's right. It's indeed nice to be 6-2, especially given all the injuries the team has endured. They've been without arguably their best players on either side of the ball (tailback Jamaal Charles and outside linebacker Justin Houston) for the entirety of the 2016 campaign.

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

And going back to the start of Kansas City's remarkable 10-game winning streak to close out the 2015 season, the Chiefs are 16-2 over their last 18 regular-season games. No team in the NFL has a better record over that stretch.

So what's the problem? What's standing between the Chiefs and a trip to the AFC Championship Game for the first time since 1993? Or even their first Super Bowl in almost half a century?

Well, for starters, while the Chiefs won three-quarters of their games over the first half of 2016, they appear to have done so with a measure of smoke and mirrors. From a statistical perspective, at least, the team is excellent in one area and one area alone—forcing turnovers.

Category	Stat	Rank
Total Offense	342.4	19th
Run Offense	100.8	21st
Pass Offense	241.6	21st
Scoring Offense	23.1	15th
Total Defense	369.2	21st
Run Defense	124.5	27th
Pass Defense	244.8	14th
Scoring Defense	18.9	8th
Takeaways	20	1st
Turnover Differential	+13	1st

Kansas City leads the NFL in both takeaways (20) and turnover margin (+13). There have been teams (the 2009 New Orleans Saints come to mind) who have ridden such a margin all the way to the Super Bowl. But turnovers are also the flukiest of stats—numbers that can dry up just as quickly as they arrived.

The Saints were also an offensive powerhouse. But outside of that one area, the Chiefs don't excel at anything.

Among the major statistical categories on both offense and defense, the Chiefs rank inside the top 10 in the NFL in one—points allowed. Granted, if you're going to rank highly in a defensive category, that's the one to pick, but it doesn't alleviate concerns about their 21st-ranked defense. Or the fact they rank in that same spot in sacks. It certainly doesn't allay worries about a run defense that's giving up almost 125 yards a game—including over 200 to the Jaguars Sunday.

Things aren't any better on offense. Kansas City ranks 19th in the NFL in total offense and outside the top 20 both in passing and rushing. The Chiefs are barely inside the top half of the NFL in scoring offense at just over 23 points per game.

Those numbers might be good enough to beat the likes of the Jaguars. And in what has to be viewed as the team's best effort of the season to date, they were good enough for a 26-10 win over the 7-2 Oakland Raiders In Week 6.

But they also got the Chiefs blown off Heinz Field in a Week 4 meeting with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and a flat Chiefs team fell in Week 2 to a Houston Texans squad that's in first place in the worst division in football. The Chiefs have gotten fat off losing teams, but their record against teams with winning records this season is a less-than-impressive 1-2.

Reid allowed to Kissel that while the Chiefs' record looks good right now, there's still plenty of room for improvement: "We have to play better. Our guys know that. When you talk to them, you’ll see. They understand. They didn’t have their best game, but the bottom line—like I said—this is a tough league and you’re sitting right at this halfway point here, man."

The problem is figuring out where that improvement is going to come from. With Charles on injured reserve and Houston's short-term future uncertain, there's not much reason to think the run game or pass rush—key components of the Chiefs' success under Reid—are going to markedly improve all of a sudden.

And will all due respect to quarterback Alex Smith (who doesn't get the run he deserves), he's in some respects a mirror image of his head coach: good enough to win in the regular season, but incapable, for whatever reason, of getting over that last hump.

I'm quite sure none of this sits well with Chiefs fans. And I'm not saying Kansas City is a fraud, or anything to that effect. Their second-half schedule is tougher than the first, but not so much so that a collapse appears in any way imminent.

The Chiefs are a good team, and they will probably make the playoffs in 2016.

But that's all they are...good. Not great. Not on either side of the ball. They don't have the Raiders' video game offense. Or Denver's stifling defense. Or New England's ticked-off MVP quarterback.

And sooner or later, in a game where the takeways dry up, that's going to cost them.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter: @IDPSharks.