Kansas City's offseason was built around getting healthy and getting Rashee Rice back on the field after his suspension wrapped, plus adding Kenneth Walker III to juice a run game that disappeared during the six-game losing streak that closed out 2025. The bigger question is whether Mahomes is anywhere close to 100% this early in the season — Andy Reid has stayed cautious with him all offseason, easing him into 11-on-11 work rather than rushing the timeline.
Miami actually finished 2025 playing its best football, winning 6 of its final 9 games under interim direction before McDaniel was let go, so there's a version of this Dolphins team that isn't as far off as the coaching change suggests. But that stretch came without a $99 million question mark at quarterback, and Hafley's first real test as a head coach is turning a scrappy finish into a sustainable identity with a new signal-caller.
Both franchises are selling patience to their fan bases right now, which makes this an early measuring-stick game more than a marquee one — a chance to see whether Kansas City's championship core still has anything left, and whether Miami's rebuild is further along than the record suggests.