All the talk coming out of Kansas City about new starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes: The Chiefs loved Mahomes when they moved up in last year’s first round to draft him, they loved what they saw of him as a rookie enough to trade Alex Smith to Washington, and there are already comparisons being made to another quarterback Andy Reid coached, Brett Favre.
But the people who are confident enough in their predictions to put money behind them don’t seem so sure. And that’s why the Chiefs’ win total in Las Vegas (and various other places where sports gambling is now legal) has been set at 8.5.
In other words, the betting public sees the Chiefs as finishing somewhere around 8-8 or 9-7, which would be a step backward for the Chiefs, who are coming off their third-straight double-digit win playoff season, and who averaged 10.6 wins a year over the five years that Smith was their starting quarterback.
Obviously, there are many factors that go into any prediction of how a team will fare in the coming season, ranging from strength of schedule to free agent signings to how many of their rookies project to start right away. But for the Chiefs, the switch from Smith to Mahomes is by far the biggest change in 2018.
And although that change might prove to be the right move in the long term, there are no guarantees in the short term. The Chiefs may just be trending downward for 2018.