NFL Power Rankings Week 18: Welp, the Chiefs are about to do it again, aren’t they?

It comes to this, dearest readers. 

I’ve been dreading it. I’ve been worrying about our time over an entire extremely oversaturated NFL calendar being wasted with the same exact ending while the journey becomes less and less compelling. I’ve been avoiding the all too likely reality. 

I’m starting to accept that a three-peat for Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs might be inevitable. How could you not feel this way?

The 15-win Chiefs have 11 one-score victories. Mahomes sprained his ankle, then came back and looked completely fine within a matter of days. Every time any of the other AFC powers seemingly have Kansas City up against the wall, the Big Red Machine pulls a magic rabbit out of its hat and comes out unscathed. It’s uncanny. It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. 

Maybe I’m wrong. Well, I hope I am because teams like Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills and Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens are more than good enough to knock out the NFL’s answer to algorithmic, heartless Star Wars or Marvel content slop (emphasis on the word “content”) on Disney+. (Shoutout to Barbara Broccoli for protecting James Bond from Amazon’s clammy hands, by the way!) But everything about this Chiefs team screams them squeezing out at least three more playoff wins in the stupidest, most annoying ways possible. I can’t shake the feeling.

As a football fan growing increasingly cynical about this league’s and sport’s future, it sucks. 

I’ll say one thing about this predicament. In an era of the NFL where we get entirely too much of it, too much of the time, all the time, the Chiefs are the perfect poster boy. Because even their possible three-peat — the first in modern league history — will have considerably less juice for a football-discerning public used to passively watching games in the background. It’s a small and ultimately insignificant silver lining, but I’ll take it. 

The Chiefs are a big focus of For The Win’s NFL Power Rankings in Week 18 as we finally near the postseason. Let’s see where the entire league stands with one week left in the regular season.