The Kansas City Chiefs’ 2024 season was a roller coaster of emotions. After winning an impressive 15 games in the regular season, Kansas City eked through the AFC gauntlet, only to get blown out by the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.

Now folks are wondering what the future holds for football’s greatest modern dynasty. The Chiefs are still a contender — of course they are — but the path to Super Bowl glory has never been murkier for Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, and the three-time champs. Their 2025 schedule does the Chiefs no favors.

Kansas City will travel 21,695 miles next season, tenth-most in the NFL. The three teams with the lowest travel mileage next season just so happen to be the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals, Kansas City’s biggest rivals (and arguably their biggest threats) in the AFC.

It’s hard to overstate the value of traveling almost 13,000 miles fewer over an 18-week period than your opponent. That is the exact advantage the Bengals will possess over Kansas City if both teams meet in the playoffs.

Travel is hard in any professional sports league, but it’s especially taxing in the NFL. Football is physically demanding by nature. Factor in the rigors of constant flights and relocations, and it’s a miracle any player survives the full regular season — much less the playoffs.

Kansas City is also an older group. Travis Kelce is approaching the end of the road. Kansas City’s lack of youth and depth was a huge sticking point after the Eagles loss. The Chiefs’ burdensome travel schedule in 2025 will include a trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil to face a division rival, the Los Angeles Chargers. Kansas City will across time zones and countries, with other road games including east coast trips to face Jacksonville, Tennessee, Buffalo and the New York Giants.

Travel is far from the only factor impacting team success, of course, but it’s worth monitoring the effects of a taxing schedule. Especially for a Chiefs team that continues to bleed talent on the margins as the cap sheet balloons. Kansas City will rely heavily on aging vets with a lot of mileage on their bodies — back-to-back-to-back Super Bowl runs will do that to you — and young upstarts with minimal NFL experience, and thus less comfort with extensive travel schedules.

It’s one thing for Kansas City, a marquee franchise chock full of star talent, to criss-cross the country (and the globe). The NFL has a lot of financial stakes tied up in the Chiefs, so it’s understandable to put them in primetime situations as often as possible. To simultaneously reward their fiercest rivals and biggest challengers with easy-breezy schedules feels almost purposefully cruel, however. There’s a nonzero chance Buffalo, Baltimore and Cincinnati are all fresher and more relaxed once the postseason rolls around.

The Chiefs will be fine, probably, but this schedule has understandably upset the fanbase.