Arrowhead Pride
The Kansas City Chiefs are now 6-6 after Week 13’s frustrating 31-28 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Five games remain in the team’s 2025 schedule. A week from Sunday, the Chiefs will return to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for matchups with the Houston Texans and the Los Angeles Chargers, travel to Nashville to face the Tennessee Titans, come back to Arrowhead for their final regular-season home game against the Denver Broncos and close out the season at Allegiant Stadium against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Let’s take a look at the Kansas City team’s current playoff picture. As we always do, we’ll use The Athletic’s playoff calculator — an update to the New York Times playoff calculator we’ve used for several years — to help us project what could happen. You can learn more about how it works by clicking here.
As it stands right now, Kansas City has a 44% chance to make the playoffs (down from 57% a week ago), a 5% chance to win the AFC West (down from 12% last week), less than a 1% chance to earn the AFC’s single bye (unchanged) and a 3% chance to win Super Bowl LX (down from 5%).
This is the first time in the 2025 season that Kansas City’s chance to make the postseason has been calculated to be less than a coin flip — and it would have been even lower if the Cincinnati Bengals hadn’t defeated the Baltimore Ravens on Thanksgiving evening. That illustrates something that will be demonstrated repeatedly during the season’s final six weeks — wins and losses by other teams can significantly affect Kansas City’s postseason prospects. Up to now, we’ve primarily focused on what is in the Kansas City team’s control — but now, what other teams do can help (and hinder) Kansas City’s chances.
The playoff calculator allows us to assume the outcomes of remaining games and see how it changes the odds.
Let’s take a look.
By itself, winning all five of its remaining games will almost give Kansas City a playoff berth. There’s about a 1% chance the Chiefs will miss the postseason at 11-6. All Kansas City would need — in addition to a 5-0 finish — is at least one loss by the Jacksonville Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, the Chargers or Broncos.
By the same token, wins by all of those teams in the remainder of Week 13 would make it more difficult for Kansas City to make the postseason at 11-6. If all five of those AFC teams win this weekend, the Chiefs would have a 97% chance to get in at 11-6. (We can say this about some NFC teams, too, but we’re trying not to make you crazy with these scenarios).
We realize, of course, that many readers don’t believe Kansas City will finish without another loss. So what are the odds if the Chiefs finish 10-7? That depends...
