Chiefs history under Andy Reid is to rest starters for meaningless games

The Kansas City Chiefs might have given the Denver Broncos a Christmas gift.

Just as the Broncos began stretching for their on-field session inside the Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse, the Chiefs pushed their lead over the Pittsburgh Steelers to three scores, good for the final 29-10 margin that gave the winners of nine-consecutive AFC West titles the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.

And based on the history of the Chiefs under Andy Reid, this means the Broncos are unlikely to see key Chiefs players, including Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, when they battle in Week 18 at Empower Field At Mile High.

This will be the fifth time under Reid that Kansas City has gone into Week 18 having sealed its playoff seeding. And in each of the previous instances — 2013, 2017, 2020 and 2023 — Reid opted to rest his starting quarterback and some other key players. That meant sitting Alex Smith in 2013 and 2017 and Mahomes in the other two instances.

In 2017, 2020 and 2023, the players rested by the Chiefs included tight end Travis Kelce.

There is little doubt that this should help the Broncos, who still need one win in order to clinch their first postseason appearance since the 2015 season.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the Chiefs are hopeless in such a scenario. They’re 2-2 in these “meaningless” games to conclude the regular season, including a 27-24 win in Denver to close the 2017 campaign.

That game was Mahomes’ first professional start. He guided the Chiefs to a 24-10 lead before being pulled for Tyler Bray, who proceeded to lose a fumble on his first snap and go three-and-out on his second series. Denver scored touchdowns as a result of both, which led Kansas City to re-insert Mahomes for a final drive, on which he led the Chiefs to a game-winning walk-off Harrison Butker field goal.

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