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As there were no pandemic-related schedule changes in Week 14’s games, our usual suspects are all back with their normal Tuesday NFL power rankings — and we’re catching you up with the ones that weren’t available on the last two Tuesdays. As you’ll see, the final holdouts to name the Kansas City Chiefs as the league’s best team have now been persuaded — some of them while they were unavailable to our weekly rundowns.
Here’s this week’s sampling:
NFL.com: 1
(unchanged from 1; Week 13: 1)
This ain’t The Last Dance in Kansas City, but sometimes the Chiefs feel like Michael Jordan’s Bulls teams of the late 1990s. They’re so talented, so superior to the vast majority of their opponents, that they almost need a challenge to present itself before they can turn it on. On Sunday, they fell behind the Dolphins 10-0 before scoring the next 30 points to take control of the game. After the Chiefs temporarily took their foot off the accelerator and allowed the Dolphins back into it, they simply turned it back on again, closing out another win with an unstoppable Mahomes-to-Tyreek conversion on fourth down. The victory, paired with another Steelers loss, puts Kansas City in the AFC driver’s seat with three games to play.
— Dan Hanzus
ESPN: 1
(unchanged from 1)
Offense: 1
Defense: 19
Special teams: 21
It’s no surprise that the Chiefs have the top-ranked offense — by a wide margin — given the seasons that Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill are having. It’s scary to imagine what the Chiefs might be if they were playing well in the other phases. Particularly disappointing is their defensive rank. The Chiefs are 20th in points allowed over the past six weeks, so defensively, they aren’t where they’d like to be heading into the most important part of the season.
— Adam Teicher
Sports Illustrated MMQB: 1
(unchanged from 1; Week 13: 1 )
Last week: Win at Miami 33–27
Next week: at New Orleans
The Chiefs got off to a slow start, Patrick Mahomes turned the ball over three times—and the best team in football still earned a road win against a good conference opponent to clinch the AFC West for the fifth straight year.
— Jenny Vrentas
CBSSports.com: 1
(unchanged from 1; Week 13: 2)
They aren’t blowing teams out, but the offense makes them the team to beat. They face a tough one this week against the Saints.
— Pete Prisco
Yahoo! Sports: 1
(unchanged from 1)
Travis Kelce leads the NFL in receiving yards. A tight end has never finished the season leading the league in that category. Many others will be in the mix for NFL offensive player of the year, like Derrick Henry and whoever finishes second in the MVP voting, but maybe Kelce needs a second look too.
— Frank Schawb
The Sporting News: 1
(unchanged from 1)
The Chiefs finally have reemerged as the unquestioned top team in the AFC. Even when Patrick Mahomes has an off day with mistakes, they have too much big-play juice on offense, defense and special teams, as the Dolphins quickly learned.
— Vinnie Iyer
USA Today: 1
(unchanged from 1)
They’ve taken over top spot in AFC field ... not that it matters. With a club record 10-game winning streak on road, not like champs need to be tethered to Arrowhead next month to pull off a repeat.
— Nate Davis
The Washington Post: 1
(unchanged from 1; Week 13: 2)
Patrick Mahomes threw three interceptions and took a 30-yard sack during the game in Miami. And the Chiefs still had a 20-point lead before allowing the Dolphins to make it somewhat interesting in the game’s late stages. The Chiefs are in line to be the AFC’s No. 1 seed and there’s no reason to believe they won’t finish 15-1, if that’s what it takes.
— Mark Maske
Mile High Report: 1
(unchanged from 1)
This is has been a strange year, but the more strange it was the more it looks like it’ll end up being a repeat of 2019 with the Kansas City Chiefs standing atop the NFL mountain. I hate that this is true and I am probably going to hate the next 10 years as well. The Chiefs have their John Elway and the AFC West is scrambling to figure out how to compete with that.
— Tim Lynch
Bleeding Green Nation: 1
(unchanged from 1)
The Chiefs now have a 93.9% chance of getting the No. 1 seed and thus a first-round bye. Pretty good position to be in as they seek to repeat.
— Brandon Lee Gowton