Over the last handful of seasons, the Kansas City Chiefs have shown that no one can dethrone them when they play their best brand of football. Regardless of the regular season or playoffs, there's always a considerable ceiling for the NFL's back-to-back champions.
The same remains true one week into the 2024-25 campaign. While the football world won't know who the true contenders and pretenders are for several weeks, a select handful of clubs are expected to compete for AFC supremacy. Teams like the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills all have reasons to be picked as potential top challengers to the Chiefs.
Who's the best of the bunch? Appearing on a recent episode of Up & Adams, safety Justin Reid weighed in on the competition for Kansas City. Reid believes that even with all due respect to his opponents, the Chiefs can serve as their own worst enemies by beating themselves.
"Honestly, I don't think that anyone has a shot with us as long as we're playing our form of ball, really," Reid said. "I think our biggest enemies will be ourselves and staying true to the process, never relaxing, never taking our foot off the pedal and just keeping everyone as healthy as possible so we can go into the postseason ready to go. I think as long as we keep ourselves into the game [and] don't think that anything will be given to us, I don't think anyone can really challenge us."
The sentiment of the Chiefs beating themselves isn't anything new. Very rarely does Andy Reid's team play an excellent game and still come away with a loss. It's a context that can be used for all 32 clubs, but Kansas City's built-in talent and coaching advantages usually give them a wider margin for error. When that margin is met or exceeded, the focus oftentimes shifts from what the opponent did right to what the Chiefs did wrong.
It's hard to trust anyone other than Patrick Mahomes and company in a do-or-die situation. Assuming good health and a solid regular season, many anticipate that the Chiefs will be right in the thick of things deep into the winter. Although there are foes worthy of consideration, Reid makes a good point in siding with a process that grows more battle-tested by the year.
