Laddie Morse
The real reasons why the Kansas City Chiefs have beaten the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Ravens comes down to two players: Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes. Yes, the defense has been stout and Chris Jones is still playing out of his mind, but if the Chiefs didn’t have these two future Hall of Famers on their roster, they’d likely not be headed to their 4th Super Bowl in the last 5 seasons.
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Travis Kelce
Not enough is being made of the sacrifice Kelce made in week 18 by sitting out instead of insisting he plays so he could get 16 more yards receiving and insure that he reaches an 8th straight 1,000 yards. Nope, Kelce did the kind and gentle thing for his own body’s sake and it has already paid huge dividends on he field in the post season.
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• Against the Miami Dolphins, Kelce had 71 yards on 7 receptions for a 10.1 YPR (Yards Per Receptions).
• Against the Buffalo Bills, Kelce had 5 receptions for 75 yards and that works out to 15 YPC. 2 TDs
• Against the Baltimore Ravens, Kelce was perfect and had 11 receptions on 11 targets for 116 yards for a 10.5 YPR. 1 TD.
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Travis Kelce knows how to get open whether it’s man or zone he’s facing. Even though that’s true, the Dolphins never should have allowed anyone to get this open:
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Against the Buffalo Bills, Kelce added two touchdowns to his lengthy resume. He has also learned to temper his enthusiasm and the week after the Bills game he explains what happened to his brother Jason on their podcast New Heights. Here’s a short clip (0:59):
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Rich Baldinger, who once played for the Chiefs, from 1983 to 1992, broke down Travis’ play this past weekend against the Ravens (3:24):
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Patrick Mahomes
Many a pundit, yours truly included, thought the Chiefs would not make it to another Super Bowl this year. Now, I can’t get behind them enough. That’s right, I thought the Chiefs might bow out of this post season by the second game, but they proved me wrong, all the way around. Their SB opponent? The San Francisco 49ers. Now, I dislike this San Francisco team for a boat load of reasons… and that’s also especially true of the Giants. When Giants pitcher Juan Marital hit Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat, how can you blame a kid? So, maybe it’s the fact that I grew up outside of L.A. and naturally despise all SF teams since childhood. Maybe it’s the way the Chiefs kept taking the SF QB castoffs. Maybe it’s the way the trade for Montana went down with K.C. not only getting the worst of the deal and after all, he only gave K.C. 25 games.
Don’t ask me why this does not apply to the Golden State Warriors.
No problem now, the Chiefs have the best QB in the world and he’ll be a Chiefs player for another decade at least. Although Mahomes has been the Chiefs starter since 2018, he’s already won two MVP Awards and made the Pro Bowl six times. In an article by Pete Grathoff for the KCStar called, “Patrick Mahomes has played full season’s worth of playoff games. His stats are elite” he says,
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“… Mahomes has posted some incredible stats. Mahomes has completed 67.4% of his passes (422 of 626) with 4,802 passing yards, 39 touchdown throws and just seven interceptions. That’s a 106.3 quarterback rating. Mahomes also has led five game-winning drives and has four fourth-quarter comebacks in the postseason. The Chiefs have a 14-3 record in games started by Mahomes in the playoffs. Before Mahomes became the starter, the Chiefs had an all-time playoff record of 9-18.”
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Grathoff also lists 7 Chiefs related stats of note, the first four of which are associated directly to Mahomes performances:
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The Chiefs find themselves in another Super Bowl a week from Sunday. It will be Super Bowl 58 (LVIII). Many are making this Super Bowl about Derrick Thomas because DT wore #58, but I think that’s a stretch. What do you think?
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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