As the Chiefs prepare to take on the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium for Saturday's Divisional Round playoff game, they enter the contest as 8-point favorites.
Still, despite the Chiefs holding a league-best 15-2 record, some NFL talking heads have concerns about the team heading into the playoffs.
Fox Sports "First Things First" host and Kansas City native Nick Wright thinks these worries are absurd.
"Last year, if you were doubting the Chiefs, you had real evidence for it, which made this year so much more foolish to me," Wright says. "The Chiefs being Super Bowl favorites was an obvious fact all year, as long as Patrick (Mahomes) was healthy."
Last year, the Chiefs' path to the Super Bowl was one of the most difficult in NFL history. The team played the top two AFC teams on the road before taking on the NFC's top-seeded team in the big game.
This year, in contrast, the Chiefs enter the playoffs with the best record in the AFC. This means that the Chiefs will play every game at Arrowhead and received a bye week for much-needed rest. Wright tells KCUR's Up To Date those factors will make a difference.
"They've earned this path, and I expect they're going to take advantage of it," Wright says.
Wright cannot imagine the Chiefs losing to the Texans this weekend. "People like to say, you know, 'anything can happen,'" Wright says. "What can't happen is the Chiefs losing in the divisional round. They never have."
Wright isn't taking this Chiefs dynasty for granted. He says it has transformed Kansas City into "one of the epicenters of the sports world."
"I feel so incredibly blessed and just lucky that Andy (Reid) and Patrick and Travis (Kelce) and Chris (Jones) and all these guys are doing this in my hometown," Wright says. "It's not once in a lifetime thing. It's a once in 100 lifetimes type of thing."
For the remainder of the playoffs, these are Wright's predictions: The Chiefs will triumph over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship, before taking on the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 59.
A Chiefs-Rams Super Bowl would be a rematch of what Wright calls "one of the greatest regular season games ever played," in which the Chiefs lost 54-51 in one of the highest scoring games of all time.
This time around, Nick Wright's money is on the Chiefs.
The Chiefs-Texans divisional playoff game kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 18 at Arrowhead Stadium. You can watch on KMBC 9 or on ESPN, or stream on ESPN+.
- Nick Wright, Fox Sports 1 "First Things First" host