KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes II said he believes he has improved a significant amount this season despite not taking a single snap in the Kansas City Chiefs' first 15 games.

"My knowledge of the game I feel like has taken tremendous leaps," Mahomes said after the Chiefs clinched the AFC West by beating the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. "Just having a full season, getting to watch [starting quarterback Alex Smith] having a successful year, watching how he studies and how he game-plans and does those things, I feel like it's helped my game a ton."

Mahomes could find out this Sunday whether he has indeed made strides since the preseason. He could be the starting quarterback against the Broncos in Denver, in a game that has no significance to the Chiefs with regard to the standings or their playoff seeding.

The 9-6 Chiefs are locked in as the AFC's fourth playoff seed. Under similar circumstances, coach Andy Reid has in previous years opted to rest as many of the Chiefs' key players as possible in the season's final game. That would include Smith.

If history holds, the Chiefs would finally get a look at Mahomes, their first-round draft pick. He has been their No. 2 quarterback all season but hasn't played.

Being the No. 2 quarterback means limited work in practice. Mahomes has been relegated to scout team work while Smith gets all of the snaps with the starters.

"I'll get the mental reps," Mahomes said. "I stand behind Alex and do the drops and do those things to make sure I'm keeping my mind on what the first team is doing.

"I've been working all year, learning from Alex, learning from the coaches, just trying to make sure I was ready every single week for the worst-case scenario. Going into next week, I'll be ready and I'm going to keep preparing like I've been all season."

Smith acknowledged the difficulty of Mahomes' situation in trying to improve without any game snaps or many in practice.

"On the mental side he's obviously watching and mentally observing and [taking] mental reps and things like that," Smith said. "But throughout the week, limited [practice] reps. He's running the look team and obviously then trying to prepare as much as he can to try to get ready. So he hasn't been in live bullets since camp. [Regular-season] practices aren't like that. So in that sense, it's been a while.

"But I've said this all along: He's a pretty natural player. If he has to, he'll bounce back [quickly]."

The Chiefs' plan was to have Mahomes sit behind Smith for the entire season. They've made it 15 games but now are presented with the chance to give Mahomes a little bit of a head start on stepping into the starting QB role, if only for one game. He could replace Smith as the starter from the beginning next year.

Seeing the field is something Mahomes is rooting for.

"Definitely as a competitor, you want to get out there and play," he said. "It would always be awesome to get an experience out there."