The Chiefs Added a Receiver to an Offense That Runs Better Than It Throws

On Tuesday, trade deadline day, the Kansas City Chiefs acquired wide receiver Josh Downs and a 2027 seventh-round pick from the Colts for 2027 fourth- and fifth-round picks. Downs, 25 and in the final year of his rookie contract, had 33 catches for 354 yards and a touchdown through Week 9, the most receiving yards on the Colts. Seven of those catches, for 72 yards, came against Kansas City in Week 2, a 33-30 Chiefs win in overtime. Coverage of the deal framed it as help for the passing game, with Xavier Worthy having tweaked a hamstring late in Sunday's win over the Jets.

Kansas City is one of two AFC contenders that bought at the deadline. The other, Jacksonville, spent its picks on defense; our Jaguars profile covers them.

Our data cannot tell you what a trade will do. It has no way to measure one player's effect, and we will not pretend otherwise. What it can describe is the offense he joins, and the short answer is: a running game that ranks near the top of the league, and a passing game that ranks in the middle of it.

How they got to 6-2

6-2 straight up, 4-4 against the spread, 3-5 on the total.

The split is by venue. At Arrowhead the Chiefs are 4-0 straight up and 3-1 against the spread. On the road they are 2-2 and 1-3, and both losses came there, in the only two games this season in which they were the underdog.

The defense and the running game carry the profile. Kansas City allows 17.9 points a game, third in the league behind the Vikings (14.5) and Jaguars (15.1). By EPA per play the defense ranks ninth against the pass and fourth against the run. The offense scores 25.3 points a game, tenth, and ranks second in rushing EPA, at 5.1 yards a carry.

The passing game is the middle of the league. By EPA per pass play the Chiefs rank 11th. By passing yards they rank 11th as well, at 254.6 a game. Their combined EPA rank is fourth, and their +7.4 average margin ranks fifth. The power ranking, which also weighs record and strength of schedule, has them eighth.

That is the hole the trade is aimed at, as far as our numbers can show it. Here is where the receiving production has come from:

Downs' 354 yards would rank second on the Chiefs, behind Kelce. That is a description of what he did in another offense, not a forecast of what he will do in this one.

The low point was Week 7 in Seattle: 3 points, 165 passing yards and 50 rushing yards, against a defense that ranks fourth against the pass by EPA. The next week in Denver the Chiefs threw for 321 yards and lost 28-24. Denver, at 7-2, now leads the AFC West by half a game.

The most-favored team in the league

Patrick Mahomes became the Chiefs' starter in 2018. Here is what the market expected of the Chiefs since then, and how they did against it:

Across 2018-2025 the Chiefs were favored by 5.4 points on average. No other team came close: the Ravens were next, at 4.0. They were favored by seven or more 56 times, also the most, ahead of the Bills (43). And they earned it. Their 72.2% straight-up record (96-37) is the best in the league over those eight seasons.

Against the spread, that same stretch comes out at 63-66-4 (48.9%), 20th of 32 teams.

This is the plainest thing the data says about the Chiefs: the market priced them as the league's best team, they were the league's best team, and against the number they landed close to where favorites in general land. A 46.1% record as favorites over 115 games is a gap that chance alone produces often, roughly two times in five. It is not evidence the market overrated them. It is evidence the market rated them about right.

The market still does. After a 6-11 season, the 2026 Chiefs have been favored by 4.6 points a game, the third-most in the league.

2024 and 2025: the same margins, opposite records

The two most recent full seasons show how much of a record can live in a handful of close games.

The 2024 team won every one-score game it played and went 15-2 while outscoring opponents by less than four points a game. The 2025 team outscored its opponents across the season and still finished 6-11, because it lost nine of ten one-score games. Against the spread both seasons were below half, 7-9-1 and 6-11.

It is tempting to read 2025 as the start of a decline and 2026 as a rebound. We tested that kind of story in our luck study, and records built on close games say less about the next season than they appear to. A team that outscores its opponents and goes 6-11 looks more like a team that lost its close games than one that fell apart.

Twenty-four seasons against the spread

The long-run record against the spread is a little above half, and split by era it turns over:

The better the Chiefs got, the more the market expected of them, and the record against the spread went slightly the other way. Neither era is far enough from 50% to mean anything on its own; together they describe a market that adjusted to a great team rather than one that kept missing it.

Most other cuts come out close to a coin flip:

The underdog line is the largest of these: 81-61-4, a gap that would turn up by chance about one time in eleven. It held in both halves of the data (54.6% through 2013, 63.5% since), but the Chiefs have been an underdog only 18 times since 2018, so it mostly describes older teams. A lean, not a finding.

January

The playoff record splits more sharply than anything in the regular season.

Since 2018 the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls in five appearances, and beat the spread in 15 of 21 playoff games. Every NFL playoff favorite over the same seasons was 45-54 against the spread (45.5%). The Chiefs' record held in both halves of the era, 7-4 through 2021 and 8-2 since, and in 2023 they were the underdog in three of their four playoff games and won all four.

It is the strongest number in this piece, and it is still 21 games. A 15-6 record would turn up by chance about one time in twenty, and we went looking across many splits to find it. It describes what this group did in January. It does not forecast the next January, and it says nothing about Downs.

Sunday: at the Falcons

Next up is Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, November 15. As stored on 2026-11-10, the spread has the Chiefs by 3.5, unchanged from the opening line, with a total of 45.5. The line can still move.

The Falcons are 3-6 straight up and 3-6 against the spread, 24th in the power ranking. They score 20.9 points a game (23rd) and allow 24.8 (21st). Their passing offense ranks 28th by EPA. Their best unit by the same measure is their run defense, third in the league, which is where it meets the strongest part of the Chiefs' offense.

History offers little. The Chiefs have been a road favorite 95 times since 2002 and beat the spread in 46 of them, exactly half. They have played Atlanta six times since 2002 and are 3-3 against the spread, all of it from rosters that bear no resemblance to these two.

What the data supports

• The Chiefs are 6-2, eighth in the power ranking and fourth by combined EPA, on the third-best scoring defense and the second-ranked running game by EPA.
• The passing game ranks 11th by EPA and by yards. That is the part of the offense the Downs trade addresses. Our data cannot measure what he will add.
• Since 2018 the market has favored the Chiefs more than any other team, and they won more than any other team. Against the spread they landed at 48.9%, close to every favorite's 48.7%: priced about right.
• 2024 and 2025 had similar point margins and opposite records, decided by one-score games.
• The 2018-2025 playoff record against the spread, 15-6, is the most lopsided number here and still too few games to forecast with.
• The long-run record is a little above half and within chance. Nothing here forecasts a specific game.

See it yourself

• Chiefs team breakdown: game-by-game results with the spread each game carried
• Rankings: the power ranking and the EPA ratings behind this piece
• Standings: 2026 records straight up and against the spread
• Predictions: the model's weekly projections and its season record
• Blog: the rest of the published research, including the Jaguars, Vikings and Bills profiles