Kansas City Chiefs Continue Their Slide In AFC West

The Kansas City Chiefs season wasn't supposed to go this way. Well, as of two weeks ago it wasn't supposed to go this way. The Chiefs were 5-2 a few weeks ago and NFL power rankings across the league had the Chiefs as a top 10 team and things were going well. They were running the ball on everyone, playing great defense and even looking good in their two losses to the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans.

Things have changed. The Chiefs escaped Buffalo in their fifth win of the season at which point I figured the Chiefs' poor play was an aberration. The last two weeks have shown me that the Chiefs play perhaps wasn't an aberration. This is a team with, as Todd Haley often says, no margin for error.

Two weeks ago at 5-2, games against the Raiders and Broncos were near gimmes. The Chiefs were playing too well, I would say, for them to enter into meltdown mode. After these last two games, there are no more gimmes on the schedule.

Arizona? All of a sudden it's a big game at home. A road game in Seattle has me nervous and I don't know how they beat Denver even in KC in three weeks. A road game at San Diego? Ha! A lot has to change for that to be competitive.

Normally I wouldn't be making such a big deal out of a two-game losing streak that comes right on the heels of a two-game winning streak but the Chiefs' mistakes aren't little ones. They're not mental errors. The other team is stacking the box and the Chiefs can't do much about it.

It's frustrating and it hurts. The Chiefs were miserably bad for three years so we know KC fans can handle losing. But losing when there are actually expectations? Now that's what really hurts. We haven't had expectations in KC for several years and, all of a sudden they're there, and the Chiefs are blowing it.

Part of this is legitimate concern and part of this is, as it always is after a game, an emotional reaction. The Chiefs are now in danger of losing their hold on first place for the first time since Week 1. They're tied with the Raiders (and Oakland holds the tiebreaker) and have three division games to go.

Will the Chiefs slide continue? Or was the slide an aberration?