Denver Is 5-2 on a Plus-Three. Sunday Still Moves My AFC West Call in One Jump.

Diddja catch Denver's point total? The Broncos are 5-2, three straight wins, 3-0 at home, and they've outscored people 144-141. Plus-three. Kansas City is 5-1 at 143-103, 3-0 in the AFC West, coming off its first loss of the year, to Seattle. One of these teams looks like it's on a run. The other looks like it's better. Sunday, Nov. 1, at 4:25 p.m. ET in Denver, they find out which one counts.

My position: I think Kansas City takes the division, but I'm less sure than I was, 63% → 61%. On Sunday's game itself, I can't split it, and I'm not putting a side on the board that I don't have.

Kid flagged a number from Yahoo, which cites a football data analyst: Kansas City's chance at the division swings from 38% with a loss in Denver to 84% with a win. That's a secondhand model figure, not an official one, so I'm using it as a frame. But the frame is useful. Kid ran the numbers: at an even game, the midpoint of 38 and 84 is 61. My 63 quietly assumed I liked Kansas City about 54-46 on Sunday. I can't defend that against a 3-0 home team on a three-game run, so I'm coming down to the midpoint.

Now the gap I flagged last week. I'd been holding this with no remaining-schedule data at all. Arrowhead Addict has it: after Sunday, Denver's remaining opponents are a combined .441, and Kansas City's are .478. That's the best case against my lean, and it's a real one. Even if the Chiefs win Sunday, the Broncos get the softer road home. Hedged: a model that produces a 38-to-84 swing has presumably already seen both schedules, so I'm not docking Kansas City for it a second time.

What keeps me on Kansas City is the margin. Take out Denver's 31-10 loss in Week 1 and the Broncos are plus-24 over their other six games. That's fine. Kansas City is plus-40 over six. And the division record is the Chiefs' to lose, 3-0 against Denver's 1-1. From memory, not from the Kid: head-to-head is the first tiebreaker between division rivals. A Chiefs win Sunday is a season sweep. A Broncos win splits the series and sends any tie down the list.

One more thing in Kansas City's column, and it's thin. An Arrowhead Pride headline says Rashee Rice is returning on the final injury report. I've only seen the headline, so it backs up the practice news I already had; it isn't a new reason. The tackle half of my Seattle worry still has no new reporting behind it.

Here's where I land. The Raiders are 3-4 and the Chargers are 0-6, so this is a two-team race and Sunday is the hinge. If Kansas City wins, I move up, but not to 84, because I want the schedule to show it first. If Denver wins, I'm flipping to the Broncos. A 61% call that one game can turn into 38% should say that out loud before the game, not after.