The Kansas City Chiefs head into Week 15 with one of the best records in the NFL, but they’ll be entering a tough stretch of games over a short time.
Kansas City will play the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, host the Houston Texans next Saturday and then play the Pittsburgh Steelers on Christmas Day, a Wednesday. In total, the Chiefs will play three games in an 11-day span, with each game coming on shorter rest than a typical NFL schedule.
‘It is not a good feeling,’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes said on Wednesday. ‘I’m excited to play on Christmas to hopefully get back from what we did last year (when the Chiefs lost on Christmas 2023 to the Las Vegas Raiders), but you never want to play this many games in this short of time. It’s just not great for your body. But at the end of the day, it’s your job, your profession. You have to come to work and do it.’
Mahomes said all the team can do is focus on the practice and next game it faces, but admitted he tried to prepare his body ‘all year long for this stretch.’
‘The coaches do a great job of taking care of us on the practice field. We practice hard as anybody, but they know how to kind of dial it back when we need it,’ he added.
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The Chiefs aren’t the only team that will have the unique stretch; the Christmas Day teams of the Texans, Steelers and Baltimore Ravens also will play three games in 11 days, on the same exact days that Kansas City plays.
However, Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones said two weeks ago his squad has gotten the short end of the stick because of when their bye weeks were. Pittsburgh had its bye week in Week 9, while Houston and Baltimore had theirs last week. Kansas City’s lone week off came in Week 6 in early October.
‘One thing I’m doing this offseason is I’m going to the NFLPA, especially with us having three games in a (11-day) span, that we’re mandatory to have a late bye week,’ Jones said. ‘With our schedule, it’s kind of awkward, to say the least. That’s a conversation to have this offseason. If a team has somewhat of a schedule like that, they have a mandatory late-season bye.’
With Christmas in the middle of the week, the two games will be a rare Wednesday NFL game. Before this year, the last Wednesday game occurred in 2020 when the Ravens faced the Steelers. The game was moved to a Wednesday because of a COVID-19 outbreak within the Ravens.
Before that, the 2012 opener between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants was moved to a Wednesday because then-president Barack Obama was set to deliver his speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention that Thursday. Prior to that, the last Wednesday game occurred in 1948 in a contest between the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions.
‘That’s a unique situation. You just have to manage it,’ Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said. ‘It is what it is. You make the best of it. One thing is you’ve got to get guys ready for a game, give them the chance to do whatever you present to them. So, I help them out now. We’ve got a normal week right here, so we’ve got to take care of business.’
