Question: What has a 3-0 start bought the Chiefs?

Answer: A September game that decides the AFC West. Kansas City and Las Vegas are both unbeaten, they have scored exactly the same number of points, and they meet Sunday with the Chiefs’ left tackle still missing.

The game just played

The Chiefs beat the Dolphins 24-10 at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday, and the fourteen-point margin overstated them.

Kansas City scored touchdowns on each of its first two possessions. Kenneth Walker III ran one in from 10 yards, then caught a 5-yard pass from Patrick Mahomes, and the game looked like the mismatch the records promised. Miami arrived 0-2, without a sack of its own and having allowed nine.

Then the Chiefs stopped moving the ball. Their third drive ended on downs. Miami rookie linebacker Jacob Rodriguez intercepted Mahomes just before halftime, and the Dolphins opened the third quarter with a nine-play drive that included a 42-yard catch by Greg Dulcich and ended with Riley Patterson’s 37-yard field goal. The lead was 14-10, and Miami had the ball and the better of the afternoon.

What kept the game from turning was Miami’s own judgment. The Dolphins went for it on fourth down three times and failed every time, the first occasion Kansas City has shut an opponent out on fourth down since Week 16 of 2019. They reached the red zone twice and scored once. Their last real chance ended on a fourth-down stop, and Kansas City answered with Harrison Butker’s 34-yard field goal and then with Mahomes finding Travis Kelce from 11 yards with 2:55 left. George Karlaftis intercepted Malik Willis on the next series, on a pass Chris Jones had batted at the line, and Butker missed from 50 on the drive after that.

The shape of the game is in the play counts. Kansas City ran 49 plays to Miami’s 67, held the ball for 25 minutes and 39 seconds, and gained 334 yards to Miami’s 329. It took eight penalties for 50 yards and converted three of seven third downs. Miami ran eighteen more plays, finished with five fewer yards, and lost by fourteen points.

Mahomes finished 20 of 24 for 246 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, and on play-action he was, by ESPN Research’s count, 14 of 14 for 201 yards and a score, tying Russell Wilson’s 2020 season for the most play-action completions without an incompletion in a game across the past two decades. The Chiefs used play-action on 36 percent of their dropbacks, the highest rate in the league, after ranking 13th at 25 percent last season. Mahomes also passed Joe Montana for 20th on the career touchdown list and matched Tom Brady for the most wins through 150 starts.

He was not satisfied, and he was not apologizing.

“We’re not going to be mad about winning.”

— Patrick Mahomes, via ESPN’s recap of the game, September 27

Walker carried 18 times for 70 yards, his first game this season under 100, and scored twice. Rashee Rice caught seven passes for 88 yards, including gains of 15 and 34 on the final scoring drive. Kelce made two catches: the 48-yarder on the opening snap and the 11-yard touchdown. Nick Bolton made 11 tackles, the 25th double-digit game of his career and a tie with Derrick Johnson for the franchise record, and rookie corner Mansoor Delane made 10 in his first full outing.

The state of the team

Three weeks in, the Chiefs are 3-0, unbeaten in the division and the conference, and seeded first in the AFC as the feed lists it. They are scoring 29.3 points and gaining 424 yards a game. The Raiders are also 3-0, and also on 88 points. The difference between the two teams so far is four points allowed.

The offense runs through Walker now. He leads the league with 360 rushing yards, an average of 120 a game, and has 442 yards from scrimmage with four touchdowns. He has forced 38 missed tackles, more than any other back, and broke 12 of them in Miami, his third straight game doing so. His three runs of 20 yards or longer this season match Kansas City’s total for all of last season. He is also the first Chiefs player with two games in the first three weeks featuring both a rushing and a receiving touchdown.

Two numbers say the rest. The pass rush has four sacks in three games, and Kansas City did not sack Willis at all on Sunday. ESPN’s Week 3 takeaways noted that Karlaftis was the only Chiefs defender credited with a hit on Willis, and that the Chiefs generated no pressure when they did not blitz, which was the complaint that followed this team through last season as well. A 3-0 record can hide four sacks in September. It cannot in December.

The takeaway rate has moved the other way. Kansas City has three interceptions, one in each game, after ten across the whole of 2025. The penalties have gone nowhere: 23 of them for 196 yards, close to eight a game.

Injuries and personnel

Josh Simmons has not played a snap. The left tackle has a back injury dating to training camp, he carries no practice status, and Andy Reid would not put a date on his return when he met reporters on Monday.

“I’ll tell you what, I will let you guys know when Josh is coming back. I’ll be the first to tell you.”

— Andy Reid, Monday news conference, via Pro Football Talk, September 29

There is a roster clock as well as a medical one. A to Z Sports reported that if Simmons is not activated soon, the Chiefs will lose the option of placing him on injured reserve, which requires a four-week absence before a player can be designated to return. Undrafted rookie Khalil Benson has started in his place. The sack total of four in three games is low, which Pro Football Talk read as Benson keeping Mahomes upright, but A to Z Sports, citing PFF, counted three quarterback hits allowed on 29 pass-blocking snaps in Miami, Benson’s first road start.

Chamarri Conner is closer. The safety has been out since a training camp collision with receiver Tyquan Thornton, and he was ruled out for Miami after limited practices all week. Reid was optimistic on Monday.

“Yeah, so he practiced last week, and he’ll get going this week, too. So, there’s a good chance he’ll be out there.”

— Andy Reid, Monday news conference, via A to Z Sports, September 29

His return matters because Alohi Gilman and Jaden Hicks have played every defensive snap through three weeks.

Delane is back and stayed on the field: 72 defensive snaps against Miami, all but one that the unit played, after three snaps in the first two weeks. Reid said the shoulder was not coming around as fast as the team wanted, and that the plan had been to keep him from playing a full game. The feed listed Conner as questionable on September 28 and Simmons as questionable on September 29; game statuses come at the end of the practice week. Cooper McDonald and Jimmy Holiday remain on injured reserve, and Omarr Norman-Lott remains out.

Miami’s afternoon was worse than the score. De’Von Achane left on the opening drive with a knee injury, and the Dolphins placed him on injured reserve the following day. They had already listed Jaylen Wright inactive with a stinger, and finished the game with Ollie Gordon, who cramped in the third quarter and returned.

The next game

Kansas City at Las Vegas, Sunday, 3:25 p.m. Central, on CBS at Allegiant Stadium. Both teams are 3-0. Both have scored 88 points. The Raiders have allowed four more.

Las Vegas is the surprise of the season so far. The Raiders went 3-14 last year and used the first pick of the 2026 draft on quarterback Fernando Mendoza, then hired Klint Kubiak, a year removed from running the Seahawks’ offense, and gave the starting job to Kirk Cousins. Sports Illustrated noted that they entered the offseason with more cap room than any other team and ten draft picks, and used both to rebuild a roster that had just won three games in a season. Three games in they have beaten Miami, the Chargers and the Saints, and they won the last of those by coming back from eleven points down in New Orleans. Cousins threw for 248 yards and three touchdowns without an interception. Brock Bowers, in his season debut, caught 10 passes for 116 yards and a score.

Cousins gave the defense the credit afterward, saying it kept showing up and handed the offense short fields, and the account of the game agrees with him: the Raiders forced three Saints turnovers, and the afternoon turned on Malcolm Koonce’s strip-sack of Tyler Shough, which the review upheld.

Maxx Crosby is the problem the Chiefs’ line has to answer. He forced a fumble and recovered it in New Orleans, and after the win he told his locker room that the Chiefs were coming to town and that the Raiders were, in his phrasing, on a warpath. He has faced Kansas City 14 times and won twice. Set against that, USA Today’s Nate Davis noted where the game is played: Mahomes is 6-0 in Las Vegas.

DraftKings lists Kansas City at minus-4.5, with the total at 47.5 and the money line at minus-225 for the Chiefs and plus-185 for the Raiders. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives Kansas City 70 percent and Las Vegas 29.8 percent. Those are ESPN’s numbers, not this site’s, and they are not a forecast this report is making. ESPN ranks the Chiefs third in its Week 4 power rankings, up a spot, and the Raiders fourteenth, up six.

Four things to watch.

Benson against Crosby. A rookie left tackle against the Raiders’ best player, with the Chiefs’ starter still absent and no timeline offered. If Benson holds, the position is survivable until Simmons returns. If he does not, Mahomes will be throwing from a moving pocket all afternoon.

The pass rush. Four sacks in three games, and all four came in the opener against Denver. Kansas City did not sack Daniel Jones in Indianapolis or Malik Willis in Miami.

Third down. Kansas City converted three of seven in Miami and sits at 17 of 37 for the season. Miami converted eight of sixteen against them, which is the other half of the same problem.

Ball security. The Raiders win games by taking the ball away, and they did it three times in New Orleans. Kansas City has given it away twice in three games. Something has to give, and it is the cleanest lever either team holds.

What to watch beyond Sunday

After Las Vegas comes the bye in Week 5, then the Chargers at Arrowhead on October 18, trips to Seattle and Denver, and Buffalo on Thanksgiving. The bye is the last quiet week before the schedule turns, and the last in which the Chiefs can settle the left tackle position.

The season-long markets have already priced in the Raiders. Kalshi puts Kansas City at 55 percent to win the AFC West, down 7 points over the last eight days, while its playoff price has risen 4 points over the same span, to 84 percent. That pair of moves is the market saying what the standings say: the Chiefs are nearly certain to reach the postseason and no longer close to certain to win their own division, because Las Vegas has won three straight and the two teams play Sunday. Polymarket has the same two markets at 57 percent and 82 percent.

Further out, the venues are more skeptical than the power rankings are. Kalshi prices the Chiefs at 8 percent to win the Super Bowl and 14 percent to win the AFC, with 24-hour trading volume in both books, so those prices are live rather than stale. Polymarket has them at 9 and 16 percent. The win-total ladder, a threshold market rather than a set of competing outcomes, crosses fifty percent between eleven and twelve wins: 62 percent for eleven or more, 48 percent for twelve or more. The market expects something near eleven and a half wins, which is a very good season and not the one the first three weeks have suggested.

MarketNowEight days agoChange
Super Bowl champion7.5%7.5%no change
AFC champion13.5%13.5%no change
AFC West champion54.5%61.5%down 7 points
Playoff qualifier84.0%79.5%up 4 points
Line chart of the Chiefs' Super Bowl, AFC championship, AFC West and playoff market prices over the last several weeks.
Season-long Chiefs market prices, Kalshi. Every figure also appears in the table above.

The honest read of three weeks is that Kansas City has a 3-0 record, the league’s leading rusher, and a passing game rebuilt around play-action, and also four sacks, 23 penalties, and only one win that was never in doubt. Sunday in Las Vegas is the first game that asks whether the difference matters, and it arrives with the left tackle still missing.

Sources

PRH | huffmanwrites.org | © Philip Huffman