Chiefs' Loss To Dolphins Raises Questions Moving Forward

If you're like me, you're trying to find the bright side of the Kansas City Chiefs getting embarrassed against the winless Miami Dolphins, 31-3, sending the fans at Arrowhead back home early. And, if you're like me, you realize that bright side is that both the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders lost, which means nothing really changed.

The Chiefs are still tied for first place in the AFC West. The Chargers and Raiders are still right there. We're basically at the same point we were last week when everyone was giddy after beating the Chargers and taking a slice of first place.

That said, the Dolphins were one of the games everyone who thought the Chiefs could be competitive thought they would win. You look at the schedule, see Miami and tab it an "easy game". There's no two ways about it -- this is a tough loss, despite remaining at the top of the AFC West.

Because of the mistake made by the players on Sunday, they'll need to steal another down the road and it won't be against a Miami-like team. It'll have to come against New England or Pittsburgh or New York. Someone that's actually won a few games this year, someone that will be favored to beat the Chiefs.

The only supposed easy games remaining are the Denver Broncos twice, and the Oakland Raiders at Arrowhead (which we know isn't really an easy game). That's seven wins, if they pull those off, which means the Chiefs need multiple wins in that brutal five-game stretch, and that's assuming they do what they should do against Denver (twice) and Oakland.

All the Chiefs did with this loss to the Dolphins is make their life considerably harder. And, if they're not consistent enough to beat a team like the Dolphins no matter the circumstances, it really makes you wonder about the state of the team moving forward.

I want to believe as much as the next person that the Chiefs somehow, someway win the AFC West but losses like this don't boost my confidence that they can play well enough over the course of the season to do that.