Who can beat the Kansas City Chiefs?
The three-time and current back-to-back Super Bowl champions appear unstoppable with no clear-cut challenger in the AFC. They’ve made the conference title game six consecutive seasons and made the Super Bowl four times during that span.
But FS1’s Nick Wright said this week that the Houston Texans have the best shot to unseat the Chiefs in the AFC. That’s right – Wright picked the Texans over other highly-touted teams like the Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals (the last time to take down Kansas City in the AFC title game) and the Baltimore Ravens (who lost to KC in the conference title game).
Wright’s reasons are simple and similar to how the Bengals pulled off their rise in 2021: Consistency in the coaching staff, a star quarterback, good draft history and the ability to spend money in free agency to upgrade at positions of need. The Texans have the same offensive and defensive coaching staff for 2024, a stud quarterback in C.J. Stroud, good young pieces on both sides of the ball through the draft and a boatload of salary cap space.
“They can do win-now stuff that doesn’t hurt them long-term because C.J.’s so cheap over the next three years,” Wright said. “They already showed they’re a legitimate playoff team.”
Are the Texans the next team up to challenge the Chiefs?
— @getnickwright on why Houston reminds him of the Cincinnati Bengals when they beat KC: pic.twitter.com/NQNu6qeNCn
— First Things First (@FTFonFS1) February 20, 2024
Now, this is a lot of projecting for a team that skyrocketed from the bottom to the top of the AFC South in one season and advance to the divisional round. But that’s what the Bengals did, too, when they unseated the Chiefs as the AFC’s representative in the Super Bowl in 2021. The Texans have a cleaner path to the playoffs in 2024, too, in a weaker division than the Bengals had that season.
Houston fell flat against a superior Baltimore Ravens team, though, in the second round of the playoffs. Stroud and company couldn’t muster much offense against the Ravens’ vaunted defense, something they team will need to correct this season if they want to compete with the best in the conference.
The Texans will need everything to go right for something like this to happen, though. That means no injuries, smart draft picks and no bad deals in free agency or in the trade market. Flawless roster building is tough, but the Texans have already shown in just one year that they have the potential to be players in the AFC.
