Re-stacking AFC contenders: Bills, Chiefs still favorites? Who else is dangerous? — Pick Six
What was once a three-team race between the Bills, Chiefs and Ravens is now complicated, with several upstarts jumping into the mix.
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The Bills, Chiefs and Ravens entered the preseason as the AFC's clear top three. How much has changed at midseason? Jason Miller / Getty Images
This was the game the NFL needed from the Buffalo Bills at home against the Kansas City Chiefs, a mostly impressive victory laced with just enough uncertainty about what it means for the future.
The Chiefs, Bills and Baltimore Ravens entered this season as consensus favorites in the AFC, but it’s been an adventure.
With a combined 14-11 record, these three powers have more total defeats through Week 9 than in any season since 2018, when Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen were rookies and Patrick Mahomes was a first-year starter. That’s a huge drop from their combined 21-5 record through Week 9 last season, opening the door for emerging AFC contenders to think bigger.
The Pick Six column revisits the AFC as the 2025 regular season’s chronological midpoint arrives Tuesday. How are you feeling about the Chiefs, Bills and Ravens? What about the Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots and Los Angeles Chargers? NFL execs weigh in to help decipher a murky picture.
The full Pick Six menu:
• Re-stacking AFC contenders
• Will Tucker Kraft’s injury doom Pack?
• Key J.J. McCarthy takeaway
• Record kick only part of story
• Bob Trumpy’s critical call
• Two-minute drill: Bears’ 576
1. The Bills nearly blew out the Chiefs on Sunday, then held on to win by a touchdown. What does it mean?
Before the season, The Athletic’s NFL projection model gave Baltimore, Buffalo and Kansas City roughly the same chance to reach the Super Bowl, about 22-23 percent per team.Sunday night, that model showed Indianapolis, New England, Kansas City and Buffalo with roughly equal chances (17-20 percent), with Baltimore, the Chargers and Denver around 7-8 percent. Jacksonville and Pittsburgh were both below 3 percent.
Those figures will shift Monday as the model refreshes with injury and other statistical data more robust than game outcomes, but the bigger picture is clear. What once was a three-team race is now complicated, even if execs around the league still see Kansas City and Buffalo as the favorites.
"Buffalo is not impressive talent-wise, but they are very well-coached," an exec from a Bills opponent said. "My gut just tells me that Buffalo is going to break through this year. They have been pretty unlucky to lose games three of the past four years against the Chiefs (in the playoffs). Those could have gone either way. Eventually, those bounce the other way, so I think they will be fine."
A Bills defense that ranked 22nd in EPA per play through Week 6 served notice that it still has the capacity to dominate against one of the NFL's hottest offenses. The Chiefs had been riding a Patrick Mahomes-era record six consecutive games with at least +7.0 EPA.
"I would want a real pass rusher if I were Buffalo," the exec added. "They probably could not have afforded this, but Micah Parsons to the Bills would have been a 'holy s---' moment."
Parsons might as well have been out there for the Bills in Week 9.
Before Sunday, Kansas City scoring 44 points on the Bills seemed more likely than Buffalo holding Mahomes to a 44 percent completion rate. It was the first time in 142 total starts that the two-time MVP failed to complete half his passes. That was huge for Buffalo, which has won the teams' past five regular-season meetings. But when the Chiefs were converting fourth-and-17 in a fourth quarter that became uncomfortably frantic for the Bills, Kansas City's playoff dominance (4-0 in the Mahomes era) came to mind.
"Buffalo wants to get into a designer coverage (on fourth-and-17), and all the DBs are yelling and pointing at each other, so they have to call timeout," a coach who watched the game said. "Buffalo is more stressed out about fourth-and-17 than K.C. was!"
The Bills called another defensive timeout with 4:32 left when they had trouble lining up. And when Buffalo missed a 52-yard field goal with 22 seconds left, visions of 13 seconds were warming up.
"When you see that guy (Mahomes) putting that helmet on and walking back onto the field with 22 seconds, that is a nightmare for Buffalo," the coach said. "He’s getting (one throw) in the end zone (to Tyquan Thornton) and another to the plus-5, with (one hitting) their hands. It's unbelievable. They're the best team. If Buffalo plays K.C. at a neutral site or at Arrowhead, they don't win this game."
The outcome Sunday could require the 5-4 Chiefs to play the next meeting in Buffalo as well, although Kansas City, currently eighth in the AFC, wouldn't even qualify for the playoffs at present.
Not that anyone expects the Chiefs to miss the postseason.
"I had Kansas City as the clear best team heading into Sunday, with Buffalo second but being worse than last year because of the average receivers and secondary," another exec said. "Baltimore has just seemed kind of broken, like an implosion waiting to happen."
Another exec thought the Ravens — who routed Miami on Thursday night in Lamar Jackson's return from a hamstring injury — could rally with their top two tight ends and fullback Patrick Ricard finally healthy together. But questions on defense linger.
Indy, Denver and New England are all 7-2 and atop the AFC.
A deep dive into the Colts this past week showed a team with strong lines, a nice mix of tight ends led by rookie Tyler Warren, a seemingly possessed running back in Jonathan Taylor and a well-schemed offense. It also revealed a dearth of elite plays from new quarterback Daniel Jones, who had been more solid than spectacular until Sunday, when he suffered five turnovers and was neither.
Jones and the Colts fell apart in Pittsburgh against a previously struggling Steelers defense.
The Broncos, meanwhile, are riding one of the least convincing six-game winning streaks in recent memory. Their 55-point margin of victory during the streak is tied for 47th out of 56 six-game winning streaks since 2000, per TruMedia. That 55-point margin includes four games decided by a total of 10 points, with three of those against the 1-7 Jets, 2-7 Giants and 3-5 Texans, who played much of their 18-15 loss to Denver on Sunday without quarterback C.J. Stroud.
"I think Denver's a good team, but I see a lot of days that the quarterback (Bo Nix) still holds them back," an evaluator said. "Defense is pretty good, offensive scheme is good. Nix has been inconsistent from the pocket in processing. He'll make a boneheaded throw every now and then. Really, the accuracy is the one thing that bothers me with him. It's just inconsistent."
Execs thought the Chargers had a shot if they could avoid more injuries to their offensive line, but with Joe Alt suffering a potentially serious ankle injury Sunday, those bets are off.
New England, anyone?
"I was so wrong about them," another exec said of the Patriots. "I know part of it is the schedule, but they look the part. Their run defense has been really good, and if I'm buying stock in quarterbacks, give me all the Drake Maye stock there is. It's not like he's throwing to (Jordan) Addison and (Justin) Jefferson or A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith."
We might instinctively put a cap on how far teams other than Kansas City and Buffalo might advance. Should we?
"It is hard to say what someone's limit is," one of the execs said. "The freaking Commanders got to the championship game (in the NFC) last year, so anybody can go win one game."
Indy's superior play on both lines could give the Colts an edge against the Buffalo and Kansas City defenses. That was a harder case to make after Sunday.
"My biggest takeaway (from Week 9) is what happened to Indy," another exec said. "It feels like Pittsburgh was on the edge coming off Sunday night, and here comes this great Indy offense, and they got after Daniel Jones and hit him a bunch. It just throws it all up in the air."
2. Did the Packers' championship chances fade when the medical staff carted tight end Tucker Kraft to the locker room?
Packers fans and Kraft himself had reason to wince Sunday when medical personnel carted the third-year tight end to the locker room with a knee injury during a rough Green Bay performance at home against Carolina. The Panthers' last-second field goal handed Green Bay a 16-13 defeat, but losing Kraft could be costlier than any single-game outcome on the scoreboard."It doesn't look good," coach Matt LaFleur said afterward.
Five days ago, we declared the Packers' offense Super Bowl worthy.
"For that," I wrote in the Scoop City newsletter, "they can thank Tucker Kraft's emergence most."
Flip through Kraft's receptions this season and you'll see play after play where he's running over, through and past defenders for huge gains after the catch. Eleven of his 30 receptions over the Packers' first seven games featured at least 15 yards after the catch. No other tight end has more than eight such catches through seven games since at least 2007, the earliest year for which YAC data is available via TruMedia.
It doesn't get much better among all-time dynamic receiving tight ends than prime Gronk, prime Kelce and prime Kittle. For Kraft to be outpacing those guys by so much speaks loudly as to what he brought to the offense. He released on screens with great proficiency, caught seam balls downfield, pushed aside smaller defenders, outran slower ones and was a player whom LaFleur could scheme open.
"Huge loss," a coach from another team said. "He's running simple routes, but he does it all fundamentally sound, and then I love the compete level to get upfield. He's a throwback because he never runs out of bounds, same as Gronk. He wants to attack the tacklers, the DBs, the linebackers. He always gets north, has deceptive speed, can turn it on and beat you to the pylon like he did against Pittsburgh."
Kraft, who turns 25 today and is also a strong blocker, had given the Packers a highly talented young tight end for the first time since Jermichael Finley was catching passes from Aaron Rodgers (2008-13).
Twelve years ago last month, a spinal-cord injury ended Finley's career. Jimmy Graham and others manned the position capably over the subsequent years, but Kraft was on another level. His 469 yards and 12 explosive receptions (gains of 15-plus) entering Week 9 led all Green Bay tight ends through seven games since at least 2000, per TruMedia.
3. The Vikings put the ball in J.J. McCarthy's hands and trusted him to deliver the knockout blow to beat Detroit. That was the top takeaway from a game in which he completed only 14 passes.
What's your play call on third-and-5 from your own 28-yard line while protecting a late 27-24 lead at Detroit with a quarterback making his third career start? The Lions had one timeout remaining with 1:41 on the game clock when Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell sent in the play to McCarthy.The result: a bold back-shoulder ball traveling 16 yards past the line of scrimmage to Jalen Nailor for a victory Minnesota badly needed after weeks of uncertainty surrounding the viability of the Vikings' QB plan.
"This was not the boot pass where they pick someone off the line and he blocked someone for three seconds and released, was wide open, caught it and dove over the line to gain," an exec from another team said. "This was a passing formation where they had to make a difficult throw, when the other team knows you are going to throw."
The boldness of the play seemed remarkable under the circumstances, partly because McCarthy had completed only 13 passes all game and was playing for the first time in 49 days.
These were good reasons to research what other teams have done when:
• Leading by no more than one score
• Having 2:00 to 1:00 on the game clock
• Facing third-and-3 or longer
• Possessing the ball at their own 40-yard line or worse
• Facing an opponent with one timeout remaining
The 64 teams facing those situations over the past 15 years have passed 56 percent of the time, with only 39 percent of those throws traveling to the first-down marker or past it, per TruMedia.
The Vikings became only the third team over that span to complete a pass traveling longer than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage for a first-down conversion in that situation. Seattle did it with prime Russell Wilson against Philadelphia in a playoff game after the 2019 season. Indianapolis did it with veteran Matt Hasselbeck during a victory over Houston in 2015.
This was the most significant early step forward for McCarthy during a season in which he has yet to enjoy a solid statistical game. He's the 12th first-round quarterback since 2000 to finish each of his first three starts with no better than -0.1 EPA per pass play in any of them, per TruMedia.
Cam Ward, Caleb Williams, Bryce Young, Zach Wilson, Dwayne Haskins, Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff, Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Eli Manning and David Carr are also on that list. But McCarthy and the Vikings got what they needed most Sunday: a victory over a division rival on the road, with a signature play to cap it off.
