Not only did the Kansas City Chiefs lose their Week 1 match-up to the Los Angeles Chargers, dropping them to 0-1 overall and in the AFC West right off the bat but the rest of the division did K.C. no favors either. Both the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders won their Week 1 match-ups, leaving Kansas City all alone in the cellar of the AFC West.

Now, of course, it’s only Week 1 and there’s no need for overreacting or panicking by any means. The Chiefs are naturally going to be sloppy in their first game, as all of the teams in the league tend to be in the entire month of September, but we’ve seen this team figure it out time and time again under Andy Reid.

All of that being said, Chiefs fan would be foolish to count out the other AFC West teams this year. We saw the Broncos and Chargers improve a season ago and reach the playoffs and, as much as we all hate to admit it, the Raiders aren’t going to be garbage either. That proved true in Week 1 with all three of those teams winning their games.

Chiefs are all alone in the AFC West basement after Week 1

Again, we’re one week into the season and there’s a ton of football left to be played but Chiefs fans would be lying if they said this wasn’t a strange feeling. The Chiefs have dominated the AFC West over the past nine years and are trying to win their 10th straight division title this season. Starting the year in the bottom of the AFC West probably wasn’t on anyone’s bingo cards, that’s for sure.

At the same time though, let’s look at the other teams’ match-ups. The Broncos, despite being heavy favorites over the Titans, struggled to pull away from them for most of the game. The Titans were starting a rookie quarterback making his NFL debut too, so it’s not as though their offense was going to be much of a threat.

As for the Raiders, they also faced a team that struggled a season ago, playing against the Patriots for their first game of the season. They did win by a touchdown though and their offense played pretty well for the most part.

The Chiefs will hopefully get everything figured out but their early-season schedule is going to make it tough to jump to the top of the division early on. With that said, as the expression goes, it’s not about how you start, but how you finish. All that matters is that K.C. is at the top of the division by the end of the regular season so the Chiefs can keep their division win streak alive and get at least one home game in the playoffs.