After back-to-back losses in the last two weeks, the Kansas City Chiefs are no longer the No. 1 seed in the AFC. They no longer hold the top spot in the AFC West. They've split with the Denver Broncos, meaning that the head-to-head tiebreaker they earned in Week 1 was one of many things wasted in their Week 8 meltdown.

Still, there is good news and bad news about where the Chiefs stand, particularly in the AFC. Do you want the good news first or the bad news?

The illusion of choice strikes again. It's all the same news.

Until further notice, the Chiefs are just another flawed contender in the AFC. How that makes you feel is a matter of perspective.

The AFC has somewhere between six and 10 teams that I could genuinely see making a playoff push that lands them in the AFC Championship Game. I could also see any of those teams being ousted in the wild card round. Sure, the Buffalo Bills seem like the worthy favorite, but who could be surprised by a mistake-filled opening-round loss to a barely-qualifying Houston Texans team that forces a few turnovers in January? No, I don't really believe in the Pittsburgh Steelers (6-2) or Cleveland Browns (5-3), but at least one of those teams seems likely to be playing in the postseason, even if the Cincinnati Bengals (5-2) end up winning the AFC North.

Meanwhile, those heating-up Bengals just needed overtime to squeak past the lowly Tennessee Titans. Before that, they handled the Lamar Jackson-less Baltimore Ravens. Before that, they beat the then-winless Miami Dolphins by just seven points.

Look around the AFC and you'll see a wave of competent but unspectacular teams who do some things well and some things poorly. The good news is that the Chiefs still exist firmly within that class. The bad news is that they have been better than that for the majority of the Patrick Mahomes era.

The Chiefs, quarterbacked by Mahomes and with the AFC's only Super Bowl rings since Tom Brady's New England Patriots, are essentially neck-and-neck with Bo Nix's Broncos. Right there with the AFC North contenders who leave me uninspired. Tied in the standings with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bills are the only AFC squad with just one loss through eight weeks.

Kansas City isn't standing above their competition, reclaiming their boogeyman status for the rest of the AFC. They aren't sitting in the basement with other squads focusing on their 2027 NFL Draft boards. They're just sharing "flawed contender" status with the rest of the conference that has high hopes and measured expectations.

The Chiefs' path to the top should still be more climbable than others—Mahomes alone changes the math of what Kansas City can accomplish—but the Chiefs have enough flaws and have suffered enough self-inflicted wounds now that it's no longer reasonable to expect the best at every turn. Could they still represent the AFC in the Super Bowl? Absolutely. Could they be bounced weeks prior? Sure could. Just like everybody else.