The Kansas City Chiefs are AFC West champions for a ninth straight season, continuing a streak that started back in 2016.
After defeating the Los Angeles Chargers, 19-17, Mahomes took to the podium for his weekly post-game presser and gave his reaction to winning his seventh division crown since becoming the Chiefs’ starting quarterback in 2018.
“It’s our first goal every single year, to win the AFC West,” Mahomes began. “It’s a great division, where [there’s] a lot of rivalries where everybody’s playing each other tough, and three teams are probably going to make the playoffs,” he described.
The Chiefs are currently 5-0 in the AFC West this season with the final contest being a road matchup against the Denver Broncos to close out the regular season. All of Kansas City’s division games have been close and the last three were decided in the final seconds.
The Chiefs beat the Broncos in Week 10 by blocking a game-winning field goal. In Week 13, they defeated the Raiders at Arrowhead by recovering a fumble of a bad snap, and on Sunday, kicker Matt Wright’s game-winner against the Chargers bounced off the left upright before going through.
Mahomes acknowledged the intense games against the AFC West are a demonstration of how tough it really is.
“It speaks [volumes] to the division that we play in and so to be able to win this division [and] to gain another game in the playoff picture – it was an important game for us against a really good football team,”
While winning the AFC West is an accomplishment worth celebrating, Mahomes knows his team needs to move forward to get where they want to be.
“We found a way to get a win but now we have to keep building if we want to get to our ultimate goal.”
This week, the Chiefs will prepare to embark on a stretch where they will play three games in the next ten days. Starting with a road contest against the Cleveland Brown next Sunday, December 15.
