Some people are fans of the Kansas City Chiefs. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Kansas City Chiefs. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: It’s over.
Your 2025 record: 6-11. A year after they took the AFC title by winning all of their games by half a point, the regression to the mean came for your Kansas City Chiefs, and it came HARD. It came so hard that Pete Hegseth just mandated all troops get injected with it.
Let’s savor the flavor, shall we? Here’s Justin Herbert torching the shit out of the Chiefs down in Brazil to open the 2025 season. Here’s TE Travis Kelce, who used to be good, fumbling an easy touchdown pass which the Eagles picked off and nearly housed on the return. Here’s QB Patrick Mahomes, who also used to be good, gifting Devin Lloyd and the Jags a 99-yard pick-six, and lemme tell you: Lloyd was [Joe Namath after a dozen vodka tonics voice] struggggggling to make it to the end zone on that return. He was laboring so hard on his way down the field that he was practically begging someone on the Chiefs to bring him down so that he could get to the sideline and suck down an oxygen tank. Luckily for him, the Chiefs were just as tired of watching the Chiefs win as you and I were! Hence, six.
Then in that same loss in Jacksonville, Jags QB Trevor Lawrence beat KC in the final minute by doing this:
In any other circumstance, that play lives in infamy as the Duval equivalent of the Buttfumble. Lawrence himself told reporters that he “panicked” on that play, because Trevor Lawrence isn’t that good of a quarterback. He still scored anyway.
And do you know why? Because these Chiefs were dogshit. You can only get away with having no wideouts, no running game, and a series of guest stars at left tackle for so long before shit goes haywire. That’s why the 2025 Chiefs went 1-5 in their own division, losing to Denver when Broncos K Wil [sic] Lutz kiled them at the buzzer with the kind of rote field goal that Kansas City’s house bigot Harrison Butker used to make with frustrating regularity. It’s why the Chiefs couldn’t outscore Dallas when every other team in the league could. It’s why their formerly unsinkable offense was strangled to death by Houston’s all-world defense, with Mahomes throwing three picks. It’s why they ceded the AFC West to Denver when DT Chris Jones pulled a Dee Ford at the end of the game, and why Raiders K Daniel Carlson beat them in the final seconds with a 60-yarder.
Young Chiefs fans surely watched all of this and cried, “But this is supposed to happen to the other guys!” Wrong, you little shit. The Chiefs were very much like this before your mom gave birth to you in a Lowe’s parking lot. You’re only now just catching up. I hope a stranger tomahawk chops your head clean off your body.
All of those losses played second fiddle to the biggest one of all, which was Mahomes tearing his ACL in a loss to the Chargers in December. Gardner Minshew took over QB duties in the aftermath and immediately suffered a knee injury of his own. You were not watching this team when the likes of Chris Oladokun and Shane Buechele had to perform mop-up duty to close out the season, but I assure you those are real people who played in real games.
Your coach: Andy Reid. Only a few days ago, our own Diana Moskovitz confessed to the rest of the Defector staff that she didn’t know that Andy Reid was Mormon. If you’ve ever met Reid’s children, or been run over by one of them, you’d understand why that’s such an understandable oversight on her part.
Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy was let go after last season and was replaced by Eric Bieniemy, who is a capable coach with this franchise and nowhere else. He has stepped away from the team for now because his son shot his wife. He’ll be back on the sideline by Week 2 and everyone will act like it’s normal.
Your defensive coordinator is still the eternally lionized Steve Spagnuolo. Even Dom Capers didn’t get this much glazing from the color guys.
Your quarterback: Mahomes tore his knee up a mere eight months ago, but guess who’s suddenly feeling fresh as a daisy at the start of camp?!
Mahomes is targeting a return for the Chiefs’ season opener against the Denver Broncos on September 14 after making significant progress in his recovery from a torn ACL suffered in Week 15 of last season. The quarterback underwent surgery on December 15 and was initially expected to miss around nine to 12 months.
But Patrick Mahomes can defy that timeline because he’s Patrick Mahomes, you see. When you’re built different like Mahomes, and you subsist exclusively on the tears of your imagined haters, you can cut that recovery time in half no problem. That’s scienceness.
However, in the totally unlikely and definitely not happening event that Mahomes isn’t quite ready for Week 1, here’s Justin Fields to sub in and throw five weak passes a game while Andy Reid grinds his teeth into a fine powder. And wait until you see seventh-round pick Garrett Nussmeier take the field in December! Watching this young man run this offense will fill your Christmas stocking with fond memories of Matt Blundin! Oh joy!
What’s new that sucks: After the nature of NFL football changed seemingly overnight—with defenses and the running game suddenly mattering again—Chiefs GM Brett Veach decided that the best way to respond to the shift was to overpay a timeshare back. So here’s reigning Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker, who has never topped 1,100 yards rushing in a season, to finally give KC a threat in the backfield. A running threat, not the domestic battery threat that Kareem Hunt gave the team a year ago. Do I trust Andy Reid to actually use Walker when he hasn’t used a running back properly since Brian Westbrook? I do not. Do I expect Mahomes to audible out of every run call so that he and Kelce can pretend it’s still 2022? Absolutely. Why would I expect any of these people to change? They live in a place where it’s perpetually the year 1800. Evolution is for the wokes.
There STILL isn’t anyone around to catch the fucking ball. Kelce should have retired after last season, if not even sooner, to be his new wife’s full-time bodyguard. Your only notable wideouts on hand are career criminal Rashee Rice, along with first-round bust Xavier Worthy, who will never happen. If you want to believe that Tyquan Thornton can make up for all of that, you go right ahead. You probably also believe that the earth is only 2,000 years old, so I think you’re fully capable of making that stretch. Tyreek Hill will be on this roster within a month. He and Rice will then murder your parents.
Meanwhile, the defense was pillaged this offseason. Veach traded All-Pro CB Trent McDuffie to the Rams rather than pay him, and then the Rams yoinked CB Jaylen Watson away in free agency for good measure. Also gone are LB Leo Chenal and S Bryan Cook, leaving Spags with an aging Jones to work with and little else. The Chiefs attempted a flash rebuild in April’s draft by trading up for CB Mansoor Delane in this first round, and then grabbing name-brand Clemson DT Peter Woods with their extra first-rounder. But you know what kind of team thinks it can resuscitate a Super Bowl-caliber defense with a couple of rookies? A team that got itself a new stadium and probably doesn’t give a shit anymore, that’s who. They brought back L’Jarius Sneed, for fuck’s sake. These guys are so done I can see the grill marks on them.
The offensive tackles are still garbage. Walker will get hurt, too. His miracle Saquon year was last year, not this coming one. But hey, maybe rookie Emmett Johnson can flash in his stead. And maybe Rice will learn how to treat women with respect.
What has always sucked: It’s over. You got your three titles this century; now it’s back to being the bright red failures you’ve always been. Mahomes is washed. Kelce is washed. Jones is washed. Butker is washed. The coaching staff is three levels beyond washed. If you fuckers wanted a running game, you’d be better off exhuming Hank Stram’s bones out of the ground to call plays. These assholes aren’t gonna do it. The future belongs elsewhere now, and I couldn’t be happier.
Try getting married at a normal venue next time, Trav. And tell your wife that one album does not an era make. Not when you just got married at 36. That one year when you got really into boho chic doesn’t count as a fucking milestone.
What might not suck: Delane is legit. I hate admitting that, but there you have it.
HEAR IT FROM CHIEFS FANS!
Fiddlesticks:
2025 was the year we got what we deserved as the football world rejoiced.
Izzy:
All I wanted from last season was for Butker’s leg to go kaboom. Mahomes suffered that fate instead.
Brian:
At least Jawaan Taylor isn’t here anymore.
Tim:
The fanbase thinks that, because Mahomes returned relatively quickly from a knee injury in a season when he was 24 years old, that he will also heal just as quickly from a much worse knee injury in his 30-year-old season. Worse, it seems Mahomes believes this as well. He’ll be putting that belief to the test behind what is essentially the same offensive line which delivered him that knee injury.
Our best WR (who has topped out as a pretty good WR2) spent his summer in literal prison, rehabbing the leg he got ripped off of his body. It seems the plan is to eventually sign Tyreek Hill again, only a few months after he also got his leg ripped off his body.
Conor:
It’s impressive that Mahomes had gone this long avoiding his leg inevitably turning into shredded brisket from Gate’s. I knew that was coming. Somehow he is fully practicing now, but it’s probably just so he can get out of the house for a long while.
If you ever want to see people still wearing Andre Rison, Larry Johnson and Frank Clark jerseys, come on and visit Arrowhead. The slack jawed yokels will lose their minds when they find out about Personal Seat Licenses and then take it out on loved ones around them at home.
Shane:
Every WR drafted by Andy Reid since he has joined the Chiefs has come in 1 of 2 flavors: Douchebag Criminal and Absolute Ass. Reid currently can’t find enough criminals in the college football ranks, so most of the Chiefs fanbase is currently pining for Stefon Diggs to <s>occupy the cell next to</s> play across from Rashee Rice.
Sarah York:
The thing about making a Faustian bargain is that at some point, the second half of the deal must commence. That was last season, and we can expect more of the same this year and beyond. We’re gonna miss the playoffs again. Andy Reid is gonna hang on two seasons too many and get even more figured out by every defensive coordinator in the league. In the meantime, the front office (led by Laurels Rester in Chief Brett Veach) will surround mid-30s Patrick Mahomes with slobs and felons and expect him to pull off his old heroics until he demands a trade or retires sometime around 2030, just in time for the Hunt family to cash in on their new stadium grift for the next two decades. Fuck this team, and fuck me for watching.
Kyle:
After having gone to and successfully completed rehab this year, one of my 12 steps should be avoiding going to a Chiefs game since 2/3 of the fanbase is what an active relapse looks like
Erica:
I’d say Harrison Butker should kick Matt Nagy directly into the sun but he’d probably miss.
Kyle:
KC without Patrick Mahomes is so bad that they made the Titans and Raiders look like the 85 Bears last year. A 36-year-old TE getting engaged to a billionaire was their leading receiver.
This city is in love with itself in the most weird Stockholm Syndrome way, because nobody else cares about it. Nobody who actually cares about food here eats the BBQ unless tourists are in town and want to go to Joe’s.
The moment Mahomes leaves we’re going to be the Jets of the AFC West again. Fuck John Elway and FTR forever.
Jake:
Xavier Worthy is a wicker man effigy of Tyreek Hill.
Mo:
On the downside, the team finally rattled itself to pieces and finished out of the playoffs for the first time in years. But it did extort $4 billion in funding from Kansas for a new domed pleasure palace that it doesn’t need, that nobody really wants, and that the state almost certainly can’t afford, so I guess it’s a wash.
Kip:
As the final whistle sounded in the 2025 AFC Championship game, my wife of five years was telling me to leave the house. While Jim Nantz and Tony Romo gushed over Patrick Mahomes and once again Jared Allen’s tears fell on the field at Arrowhead, I was contemplating the end of my marriage. Two weeks later, I was drinking near beer at an old friend’s Super Bowl party, wolfing down chili and watching Jaylen Hurts carve up our secondary while our offensive line escorted the Eagles’ defensive line straight to No. 15’s shoulder pads.
I found a new place to live and started repairing my life and my self-esteem after divorce. I made new friends, started seeing old ones, and began to recognize the self-destructive patterns in my life. That included sitting on a patio drinking craft beer and catching up with an old friend while the Chiefs opened the season against the Chargers. My friends asked if I didn’t want to sit inside and watch the game. No, I said, I preferred it out here. The Chiefs weren’t my problem anymore. I spent the playoffs cheering for my buddy’s team, the Seahawks, and embraced him when Seattle pantsed the hated Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday.
Have I learned from any of this? Dear reader, I have not.
I think Mahomes 2.0, Bienemy 2.0 and Kelce 4.0 (The Taylor Version) are going to deliver us to the promised land this year. I think Head Coach William Howard Tact-less is going to invent some new way of propelling the football from Patrick’s clavicle and embarrass the Broncos in prime time. I think the fleeing of both professional sports teams from Raytown to parts better known will make perfect financial sense, so long as Blake Shelton can play indoors in August. I am a fool. Fuck me with Rashee Rice’s prison shiv.
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