NFL power rankings, Week 13: Chiefs are mainstays near the top

After their sluggish win against the Los Angeles Rams, the Kansas City Chiefs are still seen as the top team in the league on most NFL Power Rankings.

Someone get Dan Hanzus on the phone. He’d done it again. In his weekly NFL Power Rankings over at the league’s official site, he just couldn’t live with himself having the Kansas City Chiefs as the No. 1 overall team for two weeks in a row. This was after they reached the pinnacle of his rankings for the first time all season just last week!

Those dastardly Philadelphia Eagles are stealing the hearts of many analysts. They got a signature win over the *checks notes* Green Bay Packers? Give me a break! The Eagles are good, and they have the best record in the NFL, but they aren’t better than the Chiefs. That’s a hill I’ll die on.

The Eagles have beaten a lot of bad teams, and they struggled against the Indianapolis Colts last week. Hanzus’ assumption that the Sunday night showing put Jalen Hurtz back into the MVP race against Patrick Lavon Mahomes really grinds my gears.

I get it, the Chiefs sleepwalked through their win against the Los Angeles Rams. But they didn’t struggle. You win the games you’re supposed to win, and they did so comfortably.

This is exactly how Frank Schwab at Yahoo! Sports put it when he listed the Chiefs as his #1 team.

"The Chiefs were sleepwalking through the Rams game and it’s tough to blame them. It was clear from early in the game they were in no danger of losing. And they still won by 16."

Schwab also gave a pretty good analysis of the disparate paths taken by the Rams and Chiefs to win a Super Bowl. Our own Charles Robinson gave his own perspective on this too.

CBS Sports, which also ranked the Chiefs #1, took a closer look at their upcoming game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

"They face a huge road conference game this week at Cincinnati against the Bengals as they try to avenge last year’s loss in the AFC title game. The defense will be tested."

I agree. And I’m a little bit worried. Because the Chiefs shouldn’t have lost to the Bengals last year, and they shouldn’t lose to them this year. As long as they don’t usher out the same second-half game plans they did last year then they should be fine.

As Adam Teicher at ESPN points out in their Power Rankings, the Chiefs have a very conducive schedule to get them to the AFC’s #1 seed. They just can’t blow it this week.