It's the AFC West, so something's gotta give.

Just a week after the Denver Broncos' six-game season-starting win streak reached four games on the flip side, the conference's warm-weather division is host to another watershed contest.

Well...sort of.

In one corner, the suddenly white-hot San Diego Chargers, who've turned yet another disappointing 2-3 start into yet another five-game skein that's given them ownership of the division's premier standings spot.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Chiefs enter with mediocrity's version of a hot streak after winning two in a row since the addition-by-subtraction move that sent Larry Johnson packing.

First-year coach Todd Haley's squad began turning around a 1-7 start with a not-so-surprising downing of the equally hapless Oakland Raiders in Week 10, then continued the climb with a much-more-shocking OT defeat of the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers seven days later.

Ryan Succop's 22-yard field goal in the extra session capped off a nine-point day Sunday and kick-started another game week's worth of optimism in the Missouri plains.

"I'm a rookie head coach and am passionate about what I do," Haley said. "I live and die every day on how it goes with this team - not just game day. When you care about something, there is going to be some emotion. It's easy to be positive when good things are happening."

The turnaround has registered with the media as well, yielding equally positive commentary from Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock.

"Good things happen when you expect positive results, when you put your mind in a positive place, when you treat the people fighting with you like they have as much invested in the outcome as you do," Whitlock said in a post-game piece Sunday.

"Haley's transformation from coaching mad man to competent leader has been going on for several weeks. Sunday, he finally struck the right balance. His team reflected his new spirit. The players wanted to shock the Steelers as much as their coach, whose father played and worked for the Steelers.

"Are things perfect between Haley and his players? No. But there's been a lot of progress."

As for the Chargers, their late-season brand of progress is hardly new.

Coach Norv Turner and Co. stumbled from the gate an inglorious 4-8 in 2008, then won four straight at the end to catch the Broncos and win the division en route to a second-round playoff appearance.

They began the stretch drive a bit earlier this time around, downing the Chiefs by 30 on Oct. 25 before subsequent defeats of Oakland, the New York Giants, Philadelphia and the Broncos, the last of which came last week by 29 points.

Denver had won the first go-round this season by 11.

The Chargers are 19-4 against the West since 2006 and have won three straight in the division.

"When you go beat a team like that, sometimes people assume, 'You went to Kansas City and you should beat them because they're not very good,' or 'You beat Oakland because they aren't very good,'" Turner said.

"Then you turn around and see Kansas City beat Pittsburgh and Oakland beat Cincinnati, two pretty good football teams, then it starts to reconfirm some of the things I believe. Maybe I haven't lost it completely in terms of understanding completely what this league is all about."

SERIES HISTORY

Kansas City holds a 50-47-1 lead in a regular season series with San Diego that dates back to 1960, when the Chiefs franchise was known as the Dallas Texans and the Chargers resided in Los Angeles. The Chargers have won four straight in the series, including a 37-7 win when they visited Kansas City in Week 7 and a home-and-home sweep of the Chiefs last season. San Diego took one-point nail-biters at both Qualcomm Stadium (20-19) in Week 10 and Arrowhead Stadium (22-21) in Week 15 of last year. The Chiefs last defeated the Chargers in 2007, when they came up a 30-16 winner in their trip to Qualcomm Stadium.