{"id":281253,"date":"2026-04-30T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=281253"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:35:32","slug":"chiefs-earn-surprising-spot-in-nfl-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2026\/04\/30\/chiefs-earn-surprising-spot-in-nfl-power-rankings\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs Earn Surprising Spot In NFL Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Kansas City Chiefs and the other 31 teams have successfully completed the NFL Draft and the major waves of free agency, which means it&#8217;s time to start looking at power rankings. While a series of trades, signings, and cuts will happen over the next few months, by and large, every team has already added most of its impact players for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs are usually one of the league&#8217;s most unstoppable forces, having won three Super Bowls and made it to at least the AFC Championship Game in every season from 2018 to 2024. However, last year was a lost campaign, as the team missed the playoffs and star quarterback Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL.<\/p>\n<p>Kansas City should have Mahomes back for Week 1, but\u00a0<a  href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25423042-br-expert-nfl-power-rankings-every-team-after-2026-nfl-draft\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Bleacher Report&#8217;s<\/em> Gary Davenport<\/a> doesn&#8217;t think that the two-time NFL MVP&#8217;s presence will automatically make them contenders. In a recent article, the NFL analyst ranked the Chiefs as the 16th-best team in the league.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;it&#8217;s no mystery what the overriding storyline will be in Kansas City this summer: Can Patrick Mahomes rebound from his ACL tear and get the Chiefs right back into the mix in the AFC, or are their days of dominating the conference over?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBhzDSVqcv\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 2000px; aspect-ratio: 2000\/1349;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h2>Chiefs Earn Mediocre Spot In Latest Power Rankings<\/h2>\n<p>While Mahomes is a big question mark and undoubtedly will play the largest role in this team&#8217;s success, it&#8217;s worth looking at the rest of the roster to see if Kansas City can compete in a loaded division. On the one hand, they spent big on <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2026\/04\/14\/kenneth-walker-chiefs-signing-named-one-of-offseasons-worst-moves\/\" target=\"_self\">Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker<\/a>, and the former second-round pick should help solidify this running game. However, they also lost several key playmakers on the defensive side of the ball.<\/p>\n<p>Cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson both left for the Los Angeles Rams, leaving Kansas City&#8217;s secondary in a weak place. While <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2026\/04\/21\/mansoor-delane-2026-nfl-draft-profile-2\/\" target=\"_self\">first-round pick Mansoor Delane<\/a> should help right out of the gate, he probably won&#8217;t be as good as McDuffie and might not even play up to Watson&#8217;s level as a rookie. While the team also selected <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2025\/08\/27\/clemson-tigers-dl-peter-woods-2026-nfl-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_self\">Clemson&#8217;s Peter Woods<\/a> to solidify the defensive line, they still need another linebacker, offensive lineman, and wide receiver.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, a healthy Patrick Mahomes can cover up a lot of these holes. However, if the quarterback struggles to knock off the rust as he returns from his injury, this could be a fair placement for the Chiefs in the power rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Kansas City Chiefs missed the playoffs last year and currently have a low spot in the latest NFL Power Rankings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":281263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":true,"sfio_embed_code":"<smartframe-embed customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBWtYI3yi2\" style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 3000px;aspect-ratio: 3000\/2129\"><\/smartframe-embed><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support -->","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,16,6431],"tags":[7811,7326,1576],"class_list":["post-281253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-chiefs","category-nfl-teams","tag-chiefs-featured","tag-kansas-city-chiefs-roster","tag-patrick-mahomes"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281253"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281426,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281253\/revisions\/281426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}