4 Kansas City Chiefs gamers who could determine video games in 2026

It’s no secret at this point.

Over the last two years, the Kansas City Chiefs have played 22 one-score games, including the postseason.

In 2024, the Chiefs went 12-0 in one-score games and rode that fine line all the way to their third straight Super Bowl. In 2025, the other shoe dropped, so to speak, as the team went 1-9 in one-score games and missed the postseason for the first time in 11 seasons.

Like any team, the Chiefs won’t achieve their goals if stars such as Patrick Mahomes, Rashee Rice or Chris Jones don’t play well. But their level of success could again fall to the margins: games decided by one play, one decision or a role player.

Here are four Chiefs who could quietly decide games in 2026:

DT Khyiris Tonga

Running back Kenneth Walker III isn’t the only potential impact player the Chiefs picked up among last season’s Super Bowl participants. As a defensive tackle, Tonga won’t pile up the stats, but like Walker, he’s projected to become a significant upgrade at his position.

Last year, the Chiefs rotated several through the position that usually lines up next to Chris Jones. But Derrick Nnadi, Jerry Tillery and Mike Pennel didn’t do much to make Jones’ life easier.

Tonga, the sixth-year pro who helped the New England Patriots return to the Super Bowl last season, excels at taking on double teams.

Although he recorded no sacks, Pro Football Focus gave him a superb pass-rushing grade among tackles. Tonga and rookie Peter Woods should elevate the defensive middle, along with Omarr Norman-Lott as he works his way back from injury.

– Blair Kerkhoff

WR Xavier Worthy

Perhaps it’s a funny notion to consider someone under the radar whom the Chiefs drafted 28th overall just two years ago. Someone who shattered the symbolic radar at the 2024 NFL Combine with what remains a combine-record 40-yard dash time of 4.21 seconds.

But after an apparent regression from his rookie season through his injury-riddled 2025 season, there seems to be a hovering narrative hovering that Xavier Worthy isn’t all that.

After all, he went from 59 catches for 538 yards and six touchdowns to 42 for 532 and one last season.

And skepticism has only increased recently since he was limited during training camp by another shoulder injury.

But here’s the thing about Worthy: He’s still only 23, and no doubt his dip last season was mostly about the shoulder injury he suffered in a collision with Travis Kelce three plays into the opening loss against the Chargers in Brazil.

In the process, Worthy suffered a dislocated shoulder and torn labrum. He returned for Week 4, but the shoulder hindered him all season and required offseason surgery.

Worthy was “never 100 %,” he said during training camp in St. Joseph. The consequences of that included, he said, not being able to “run a lot of the things that I would normally run … in the way that I would want to.”

So doubt him if you must. And yes, it’s hard not to attach an asterisk here because of reasonable questions about his health and durability.

Most of all, though, consider this: In the last game he was fully healthy, Worthy had eight catches for 157 yards and two touchdowns in the otherwise wretched 40-22 Super Bowl LIX loss to the Eagles. That night, he looked a whole lot like the future for the Chiefs. He still can be.

– Vahe Gregorian

DE R Mason Thomas

The contributions from this rookie class aren’t a bonus. They’re a requirement.

The defense will feature at least three rookies regularly, and any of them could probably crack this list.

Why R Mason Thomas as the choice? Well, his speed off the edge can cause a quarterback to make mistakes — the kind of game-changing mistakes from which the Chiefs did not benefit a year ago. Only three teams had fewer takeaways than the Chiefs did.

The best way to generate more turnovers is to pressure the quarterback. Thomas has not only pressured quarterbacks in the preseason — which, yes, is different from doing it in the regular season — but he’s tallied quick pressures.

The former makes an impact. The latter completely wrecks a play.

Last season, Next Gen Stats credited 52 players with causing at least two turnovers because of their pressure on the quarterback. The Chiefs employed zero of those 52.

They need to be on that list. If Thomas (or any rookie) can be part of it, the Chiefs’ defense will not only look better, but an offense operating with the occasional shorter field will, too.

– Sam McDowell

Returner* Brashard Smith

You may have noticed the asterisk, and that’s because I wanted to be clear that this is Brashard Smith the returner — not running back — whom I’m considering to swing games.

Smith should have orchestrated touches within the offense, but the true difference he can make is likely to come on special teams.

During the Chiefs’ final preseason game, late in the first quarter, Smith set the Seattle Seahawks up by running up the left side, seeing the chasers bunch and making a sharp cut to his right. The second-year returner followed the green grass for a 57-yard return.

Sure, it was the preseason, but the play was statistically significant.

The 57-yard kick return was longer than any Chiefs regular-season kick return since Byron Pringle’s 102-yard touchdown against the Denver Broncos in 2020.

Nikko Remigio, Smith’s partner on kick returns and starting punt returner, did have a 63-yard kickoff return during the 2024 postseason, but that was his only kickoff return in 50 regular-season and postseason tries that went longer than 57 yards.

There’s no arguing that Remigio could be Dave Toub’s most reliable returner. Smith has some Pasquatch to him — that home-run upside.

– Pete Sweeney