Behind Enemy Lines: 5 Questions with KC Kingdom’s Ben Nielsen

As the Colts gear up to face the Kansas City Chiefs in the Wild Card round, we check in with our friends at KC Kingdom. Editor Ben Nielsen has helped us answer questions about the Chiefs.

We answered some questions for him as well, check them out here.

1. The Chiefs started 9-0, but were 2-5 to finish the season. Is this team really what their 11-5 record suggests? Or did they just feast on the dregs of the NFL?

Let’s start here: The Chiefs did feast on the dregs of the NFL, no question. Kansas City caught some solid/good teams – Dallas and Philadelphia – at the right time and faced backup quarterbacks in five-straight games before the bye week. So, yes, the Chiefs have had a pretty easy schedule.

But with that said, Denver and Kansas City have 14 common games on their schedule (including the KC-DEN games), so how much does strength of schedule really mean? Are we going to argue Denver is not really a 13-3 because they’ve played, essentially, the same schedule as the Chiefs?

A lot of the perception around the Chiefs comes down to their quarterback – Alex Smith – and the fact they were 2-14 a year ago. The roster is talented – eight Pro Bowlers would attest to that – and deep – nearly beating a playoff team on the road while benching the starters would suggest that. They have a very good, if not great, head coach in Andy Reid, and do a very good job of putting players in a position that makes sense for their skill set. But the perception is that Smith is not a “great” quarterback so the validity of Kansas City’s 11-5 record is in question.

Are the Chiefs a great team? No. But Kansas City is a very good team, good enough to win road playoff games. This doesn’t mean the Chiefs will win on Saturday, but they deserve to be in Indy more than the 2006 team that lost to Indianapolis in the Wild Card round did.