Game Day! Big game today against the Colts (or just another opportunity for us to get a little better if you ask Todd Haley). As you'd imagine, there's a lot of Kansas City Chiefs news this morning. Be sure to read up and be an informed fan. To those of you going to the game, make some noise for the rest of us. Go Chiefs!!

The Chiefs play the Colts today, and it’s a game that wasn’t supposed to have this much at stake. The Chiefs are 3-0 for the first time in seven years, and they sit alone as the NFL’s only unbeaten team. With a win, the Chiefs would take the AFC and their division by the throat, and the conversation would shift from whether this team is a legitimate playoff contender to where it stands among the conference’s elite.

The Chiefs will have an idea today whether their 3-0 start is just an illusion from KC Star

After winning a total of 10 games in the past three seasons, Kansas City is playing timely football on both sides of the ball and has one of the league's more exciting young cores. We'll find out a lot about Kansas City in the next two games, at Indianapolis on Sunday and at Houston on Oct. 17. 

But there are signs that this team will be in the mix all season in a wide-open AFC West. Here are 10 reasons, in no particular order, why Kansas City could win the AFC West, including the Chiefs' strong points and shortcomings of the other three division teams:

How the Chiefs can win the AFC West from ESPN

Even in Kansas City, long desperate for good vibes around our pro sports teams, we remain skeptical. Maybe this is a three-game fluke built on circumstance and bad opponents. That’s how most are reading it.

The Chiefs at Indianapolis today are the weekend’s biggest underdog. Bodog.com has the Chiefs as a plus-160 underdog even to make the playoffs. Good seats for future games at Arrowhead Stadium remain available.

Chiefs aren't world-beaters, but they're on path to greater success from KC Star

Bottom line

The Chiefs do enough things well that the notion of them winning on the road against the defending AFC champion is no longer absurd. The problem is that they won’t be able to just play to their strengths to beat the Colts. They’ll have to make some plays in the passing game and prevent Manning from making too many. That may be too much to expect. Prediction: Colts 27, Chiefs 20.

Chiefs-Colts scouting report from KC Star

Three-and-oh no! 
Since 2000, 54 NFL teams have started 3-0 and only these 16 didn’t make the playoffs. Eight finished 9-7, five were 8-8, two were 7-9 and only one — the 5-11 Chargers in 2001 — lost double-digit games:

3-0 teams since 2000 that didn’t make the playoffs from KC Star

The last time the Kansas City Chiefs came to town, they were in a downward spiral. A serious one.

It was Nov. 18, 2007, and the Indianapolis Colts extended the Chiefs' misery by handing them a 13-10 setback. Kansas City, one of the NFL's most respected franchises, was in the midst of a skid in which it lost 35 of 41 games.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. The Chiefs are back in town, and well on their way back from oblivion. They're the league's lone unbeaten at 3-0, and relevant once again.

Fresh faces fueling Chiefs' resurgence from The Indianapolis Star

Although the Chiefs stand as the NFL's lone undefeated team, they are considered a long shot to beat Indianapolis on Sunday. And that’s nothing more than shortsightedness.

The Chiefs (3-0) come in very confident. They are well-rested off an open date and have already thwarted another opponent with a loaded passing game — AFC West rival San Diego in Week 1.

Many teams don't have the makeup to get the better of Peyton Manning and the Colts (2-2), especially in their home dome. But the Chiefs have the necessary elements, though it most definitely will take a high level of execution.

Week 5: Kansas City Chiefs at Indianapolis Colts from The Sporting News

Cassel now leads the NFL's last unbeaten team (3-0), and a win Sunday at Indianapolis would enable the resurgent Chiefs to equal their win total from an ugly inaugural season for the new regime.

"I thought about that," Cassel said. "I know how long last year was for a lot of us. To win only four games, it was very difficult. To think we're already one game away from our win total from last year is pretty crazy."

After rough 1st season, Cassel Chiefs' leader from The Indianapolis Star

The Chiefs are in tapping-the-brakes mode, trying to manage expectations for a team that at 3-0 is improbably the last remaining unbeaten club in the N.F.L.

"We haven't done anything yet," Chiefs General Manager Scott Pioli said in a telephone interview last week. "We've won three games in a 16-game season. What we wanted to accomplish was, we were going to build a team a certain way with a certain type of player both physically and makeup-wise and try to build something that was going to sustain. And we're in our infancy."

For the Chiefs, Three Wins Are Little More Than a Good Start from The New York Times

In a season many expected them to be the class of the AFC, the Colts (2-2) have performed at a mediocre level, are beset by injuries and today will face the only remaining unbeaten team in the NFL: the Kansas City Chiefs (3-0).

"The big thing is that we do not necessarily harp on guys that get injured, bellyache about a ‘woe is me' kind of attitude when we do have a bit of a challenge. We embrace it," Colts coach Jim Caldwell said. "Whoever is next in line to step up and do the job, we expect them to do so, and we've gotten that for the most part."

Time to ‘embrace’ challenge from The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Now the question is, who will line up at strong safety against the Kansas City Chiefs this afternoon? Bullitt is out for the season after breaking a bone in his shoulder in last week's loss to Jacksonville. Jamie Silva, a potential replacement, also is lost for the year after incurring a season-ending knee injury during the preseason.

Sanders may be back in December after suffering a torn right biceps against Houston in the season opener.

That leaves a list of largely unproven backups to vie for the job.

Colts need backups to step up in wake of injuries from The Terre Haute Tribune-Star

The Chiefs, former patsies turned into the last unbeaten team in the NFL, will come in pounding the ball with two quality running backs but with some other offensive tricks up their sleeves, courtesy of coordinator Charlie Weis.

The Colts' (2-2) defense must answer the Chiefs' game plan, the critics' skepticism and perhaps their own doubts.

"We've just got to get everybody on the same page, communicating more effectively, lining up where we're supposed to," linebacker Gary Brackett said. "You don't have to do any more than what your job calls for you to do. Do your job and the defense works fine."

Against Chiefs, pressure's on Colts defense from The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel

According to the Associated Press, Indianapolis Colts' wide receivers Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie are cleared to play this Sunday as they face the only undefeated team left in the National Football League, which are the Kansas City Cheifs, surprisingly.

Garcon, Collie to Play Against Undefeated Chiefs this Sunday from Naptown's Finest

Maybe the reason is because so many seasons have passed since Stover, 72, played for the Kansas City Chiefs in an epic little game called Super Bowl I...

...Regardless, Stover is someone whose niche in sports history should be remembered. Know anybody else who flirted with a pro football triple crown?

"Smokey" Stover used criticism from Vince Lombardi, others to achieve football goals from Tulsa World

"As for the early bye week, it was a nonfactor to us," Las Vegas Hilton sports book director Jay Kornegay said. "It was surprising when we made the numbers last week that the largest favorite was going against the last unbeaten team in the league. Kansas City has done it with smoke and mirrors thus far."

BETTING TRENDS : Teams off bye week present challenge from The Las Vegas Review Journal

Four weeks into the season, 23 of the league's 32 teams are either leading their division or within a game of first place.

That fact is lauded as an accomplishment by the NFL in one of its previews this week, a historic high point in terms of contention.

But that also might be a low point in terms of quality, because a good chunk of those 23 teams aren't clustered toward the top of the standings so much as stuck in the middle.

NFL is close to achieving its dream season — every team finishes 8-8 from The Seattle Times

Somebody needs to come up with a better buzzword than parity to describe the NFL.

After years of a system that helps promote equality, be it with formula scheduling based on standings or the inverse draft order decided by records, it seems pro football has reached a new standard for "any given Sunday..."

...Some tidbits to put a weekly dose of unpredictability in some semblance of perspective:

After 4 weeks, NFL nearly dead even from The Indianapolis Star

Upset:
The Indianapolis Colts have been having a tough year, and it won't get any better when they lose to the Kansas City Chiefs at home this Sunday.

Bakers choice for Week Five in the NFL from NFL Gridiron Gab

Tony Moeaki -- Chiefs fantasy owners are so lucky to have their players coming off a bye week to the play the Indianapolis Colts, especially those few who actually start Moeaki. Kansas City will play from behind at some point, and the Colts will have the next Charlie Peprah starting at safety. Plus, Moeaki seems to have surpassed top target Dwayne Bowe both inside the red-zone and out.

Fantasy Football Forecast: Week 5 from OnMilwaukee.com