Is This an Inflection Point in the Chiefs 2023 Season?

Turbulence and turmoil abound for Kansas City...but can they use it as a rallying cry?

Sunday night was a bleak time for Kansas City Chiefs’ fans. The team had just dropped it’s second straight game, their third in the last four, and their fourth in the last six. A 2-4 record from the end of October through the middle of December had — at least as of 6:00 PM Arrowhead time on Sunday — taken the 1 seed out of play in the minds of most fans had had them wondering “Is this the year we finally see the Chiefs play a road playoff game?”

After the dust had settled on Week 14 of the NFL season, the Chiefs saw two AFC division leaders drop games alongside themselves, the Baltimore Ravens continuing to gut out tough wins, and the main focus of the entire week on an officiating decision made against Kadarius Toney nullifying a late touchdown. The NFL-wide dynamic had flipped from “The Chiefs might be done with their rule over the AFC” to “The Chiefs were yet another play away from burying a good NFL team” in the span of 24 hours.

Yes, Kadarius Toney was lined up improperly — multiple times a game, as ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky revealed early on Monday morning. Yes, other receivers throughout the league had lined up improperly over the weekend and into Monday Night, bringing even greater focus to some of the complaints that Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes had shared in their post-game press conferences. Yes, the Chiefs are just one game up on the division and two games back from the one seed with four to play, putting this season on a bit more of a knife’s edge than in the past. And yes, they still have the same group of wide receivers whose repeated mistakes have cost them multiple games this year.

And yet, it feels like this might be a unifying moment — the inflection point, if you will — for this group to go and claim the AFC again. Let me explain.