Laddie Morse
Burrow-head, Schmurrow-head! The Curse is over. The Cincinnati Bengals have not beaten the Kansas City Chiefs for a fourth time in a row. The Chiefs came out on top in the 2022 AFC Lamar Hunt Championship game, 23-to-20, and boy was it a hotly contested game until the final seconds.
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In a game where QB Patrick Mahomes was obviously hobbled and playing under the effects of a high ankle sprain, his fourth quarter scramble to gain a first down while going out of bounds was the play of the game. Bengals rookie Joseph Ossai hit Mahomes when he’d already run out of bounds (see below) setting up a much more make-able Field Goal try by Harrison Butker… which he nailed.
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The Chiefs Defense helped win this game. This game helped me coin the phrase: “Trenches Win Championships” and now all they have to do is beat the Philadelphia Eagles — who also have great trench players — and who won the NFC Championship game 31-to-7 over the San Francisco 49ers earlier in the day.
MVS Coming of Age Game
WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling had 6 catches for 116 yards. His catches were all important and made even more important by the fact that several of the Chiefs wideouts in front of him on the depth chart had already gone down with an injury including: Kadarius Toney, Mecole Hardman, and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
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MVS also had a TD to make the score 20 to 13 (after Harrison Butker kicked the extra point, which he did).
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Battle of the Quarterbacks
Patrick Mahomes was 29 of 43 (67.4%) for 326 yards passing with an average of 7.6 yards per throw including two (2) TD and zero (0) INTs. Mahomes was also sacked three (3) times, but had a 105.4 Rating.
Joe Burrow was 26 of 41 (63.4%) for 270 yards passing with a an average of 6.6 yards per throw including one (1) TD and two (2) INTs. Burrow was also sacked five (5) times and had a 70.2 Rating.
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Mahomes beat Burrow in every possible way, including the final score.
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Redemption Game
I think KCBudMan said it best last night in the aftermath of the game:
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Chris Jones Spectacular
As KCBudMan pointed out above, last night’s game was a redemption of sorts for DT Chris Jones because he didn’t have any post season sacks until he had two in this game and lived in the Bengals backfield all night long.
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Obviously, Chris Jones is an emotional man, as you can see from above, and he has learned how to channel that positive emotion into his performances. This was said of Chris Jones performance on Sunday by Cody Tapp and I can’t disagree in the least:
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“Chris Jones had one of the most dominant
games I ever remember from a DL.”
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Travis Kelce On Fire
Travis Kelce lead all receivers in the game with seven (7) total catches. He gained 78 yards from his catches and had this to say afterwords, while also addressing the Cincinnati Mayor:
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“Jabrody” huh? That’s interesting. I’m not into name calling, but Kelce deserves the right to say as he pleases. In a game where the Chiefs lead at halftime, 13-to-6 and were only one TD ahead of the Bengals, it felt all too similar to their previous 3 games and in some ways my feelings were justified. Especially when the Bengals came back to tie the game up in the fourth quarter 20-to-20. Afterwards, the Chiefs QB made it clear he wasn’t going the same route the Bengals QB had gone:
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Rushing Yards vs. Passing Yards
Mahomes threw for 326 yards while all the RBs combined ran for 42 yards rushing. At face value, that’s quite a discrepancy. However, if you take RB Isiah Pacheco’s 59 receiving yards and add that to RB Jerick McKinnon’s 17 receiving yards… it adds up to 76 yards. If you take those receiving yards away from Mahomes total of 326 you come out with 250… and… if you add those RBs receiving yards to the total rushing yards (because they are both lined up as rushers) then you come up with 118 yards. Now, there’s still quite a discrepancy, but perhaps we can see what Andy Reid is trying to achieve with his rushers and receivers.
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So Happy For
Besides feeling happy for a boatload of rookies who played their tails off in this game, and during this season, you can’t help but feel happy for a player like DE Carlos Dunlap who has never been to a Super Bowl. Now, he not only makes his presence felt on the field, but brings with him a lifetime of hopes and dreams fulfilled. Dunlap had two (2) of the twelve (12) QB Hits in this game.
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You also have to feel happy for Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Justin Reid (below) who came over from the Packers and the Texans.
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You can’t help but feel happy for WR JuJu Smith-Schuster too. He’s never won anything like this before. JuJu injured his knee during the game and did not return.
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Please get that man a new contract!
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Note: LB Willie Gay also hurt his shoulder during the game but did not return.
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Re-Trenching
As I mentioned earlier, I think this game was won in the trenches. The only deal with that assessment is, I think the Bengals won, or played to a stalemate when their DL was lined up against the Chiefs OL. They may not have produced as many sacks as the Chiefs (5-to-3), but they constantly were collapsing the Chiefs pocket and making Mahomes throw off schedule or off kilter. Normally, that would be no problem for Mahomes, but with his high ankle strain, which was obviously still bothering him, their DL nearly won the game for them.
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Players of the Game
MVS and Chris Jones both deserve to win a game ball and in this case, each of them truly stepped up and made an impression they never have made before.
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Song of the Game
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Of course the Chiefs still have to go on and win the Super Bowl in two weeks, against Andy Reids’ old team — the Eagles — and against Travis Kelce’s brother’s team… but that’s doable. Right? Of course right!
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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