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Ho hum. Another week, another consensus from the national writers that the Kansas City Chiefs are the league’s best team. Typing “(unchanged from 1)” is tedious, but I’m willing to do it for a while.
Here’s our sampling of the Week 5 rankings:
NFL.com: 1
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The Chiefs won on Monday night because their defense showed it can still deliver a big performance even without the unit’s best player. A groin injury sidelined Pro Bowl defensive tackle Chris Jones, but the defense still put pressure on the quarterback and forced four turnovers in a 26-10 win over the Patriots. Is this the same game if Cam Newton (out after testing positive for COVID-19) plays instead of Brian Hoyer and Jarrett Stidham? Probably not, but you get the feeling that Patrick Mahomes would’ve made sure the outcome would be the same either way. The Chiefs are 4-0 for the fourth consecutive year. Crazy stuff.
— Dan Hanzus
ESPN: 1
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FPI chance to make playoffs: 99.5%
A lot has to go wrong for the Chiefs to miss the playoffs, but 99.5% sounds a little too high in a season where so much is unknown. The Chiefs are in the midst of a stretch in which they’re playing three games in 11 days. Could something unforeseen happen in those three games to throw off their carefully laid plans? Or, later in the season, what about COVID-19? Last year, the Chiefs hit a midseason stretch where they lost four of six games and didn’t look like legitimate Super Bowl contenders. Something similar this time is unlikely, but more than 0.5% possible.
— Adam Teicher
Sports Illustrated MMQB: 1
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Last week: Win vs. New England 26-10
Next week: vs. Las Vegas
The Chiefs’ offense had its issues against a stout Patriot defense, so it was the defense that made the plays, with a Frank Clark strip-sack and Tyrann Mathieu pick-six being the two biggest plays in KC’s second straight win over Bill Belichick.
CBSSports.com: 1
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They showed against the Patriots that they could win games even when they don’t play as well on offense. Then again, they were facing a backup quarterback for New England.
— Pete Prisco
Yahoo! Sports: 1
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The Chiefs have played four games, and in two of them, the Chargers and Patriots held the offense down well into the second half. It doesn’t mean the Chiefs aren’t the best offense in the NFL. It just means that there are ways to slow them down, at least for a while.
— Frank Schawb
The Sporting News: 1
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The Chiefs caught a break with a delayed game in Week 3, as they beat the Patriots at home without Cam Newton. That also delays their next big AFC test to Week 6 at the Bills on a Thursday night.
— Vinnie Iyer
USA Today: 1
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Prior to Week 4, no team had ever won on consecutive Mondays. Prior to Week 4, no team had started 4-0 in four consecutive seasons. Kansas City rewrote a lot of history with their ad hoc “MNF” defeat of Pats.
— Nate Davis
The Washington Post: 1
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That wasn’t the Chiefs at their best Monday night. But they did enough, and now they’ve beaten the Ravens and Patriots on consecutive Mondays. The win over the Patriots began a stretch of three games in 11 days for the defending champs.
— Mark Maske
Mile High Report: 1
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The class of the NFL remains Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, but there are two very good NFC teams right now in the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks. Russell Wilson is on the same pace that Peyton Manning was in 2013 when he threw for an NFL record 55 touchdowns.
— Tim Lynch
Bleeding Green Nation: 1
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Pat Mahomes didn’t even play all that well; he easily could’ve logged three turnovers. And yet he finished with the following stat line anyway: 19/29, 236 yards (8.1 avg), 2 TD, 0 INT, 113.6 passer rating. Mahomes was assisted by KC’s defense coming up with four takeaways.
— Brandon Lee Gowton