Ten Things About Tonight’s AFC Championship Game: KC 38 - Buffalo 24
10. My mom passed in May 2018. She was gone right before Mahomes started his three straight AFC Championship game run. She used to tell me my worst personal trait was that I stubbornly held grudges. Then I would joke that I’d never forgive her for telling me that. I do hold sports grudges basically forever. Today was karmic payback for 1993. 27 years ago the Chiefs were one game away from the Super Bowl, after a 23 year wait. Of course, the Bills were at the tail end of their AFC dynasty. King Carl sent out a nasty letter to season ticket holders a couple days before the game. The letter basically said “Don’t bug us for Super Bowl tickets, because you ain’t gonna get em. Don’t call. Don’t write. Shut up. Your choice to be a fan.” Then Joe Montana got thrown on his head; Marty benched Derrick Thomas and the Chiefs limped home with their tail between their legs, losing 30-13. Then the Super Bowl drought lasted another 27 years beyond that, until Andy and Patrick broke through last year. My best buddy Gary went to that game in Buffalo and had to endure all the Buffalo fans, and shitty Buffalo Weather, and the humiliation. 27 years later that game has been AVENGED and we let those chicken wing grubbing, Genesee chugging Bills Mafia snow pigs suffer like we suffered. The best thing is, after blowing a nine point lead and getting beat by two TDs, they had to GET ON A PLANE AND FLY BACK TO BUFFALO IN JANUARY! BWAHAHAHA. Revenge is mine. Oh yes, sweet revenge is mine. By the way, BILLS stands for “Boy I Love Losing Superbowls.”
9. This whole season has been so weird. I wasn’t too worried about losing to anybody in the AFC, and only got nervous when Pat got knocked woozy last week against the Browns. I knew Mahomes would clear concussion protocol starting around Wednesday for two reasons: One, the dude isn’t a giant pussy (I’m looking at YOU Sammy Watkins) and second, you know the NFL wanted him playing in this game for the ratings. I just thought Patrick would be Patrick and if he could stand up and throw the football, we’d be fine. He didn’t disappoint. It’s finally sunk in that we have “the guy” now. It’s taken a couple years to get used to it, but we have one of the few “guys” who can make all the difference. He’s our Five Head. He’s our Favre. He’s our Tommy Boy. He’s one of “those guys” who can carry a team and simply will them to win. And getting three AFC Championship games in a row at Arrowhead is a monumental feat. Historic and awesome.
8. I think Josh Allen is pretty good, but he’s not “the guy” yet. He took four sacks, a couple of them were monster sacks. He threw a couple picks and seems easy to rattle with blitzes. He ran for 88 of Buffalo’s 114 rushing yards. When the Bills were up 9-0, I wasn’t too worried. We’ve had worse first quarters. We gifted them their first TD…then they blew the extra point. KC took the lead at the nine minute mark in the 2nd quarter and never trailed after that. And when the Bills kept settling for field goals, I knew it was over for them. Three’s don’t beat seven’s vs. Mahomes, and coaches never seem to learn that.
7. Hardman made a gigantic bonehead play, muffing a punt inside the ten yard line which gave the Bills their first TD immediately after. At least he did atone with a catch-up TD in the second quarter, and broke a 50 yard run which was good for almost half of the teams total rushing yards on that one play. I’d feel better with Pringle fielding punts. Don’t want to use Tyreek Hill because he’s too valuable as a wide out.
6. Tyreek has a game that will help him make it to Canton. He set the all time KC single playoff game record with 177 yards. 71 of that was on a simple slant play that he broken field ran almost for a TD. If he could have gotten one more downfield block he would have made it. His speed is just crazy. Romo said on the 71 yarder he got up to around 21 mph. Wow.
5. Kelce shredded the Buffalo secondary with 13 catches, 118 yards and 2 TDs. I believe he broke Gronk’s single season/post season record. Buffalo was worst against the tight end this season and it showed. Mitch said the Sausage tied Dustin Colquitt for playing in his 12th Chiefs playoff game. That’s pretty awesome for Sherman.
4. Spags defense did a great job. The last seven points for the Bills was garbage time. The two TDs the defense gave up were after the muffed punt and after the onside kick recovery. In all the other Buffalo scoring drives, they gave up field goals only. Two of them were from 50 yards. The first Bills game in Buffalo was chippy. This one was too. The defense seemed to come out with a real bad attitude and slapped the Bills around a lot. They laid some lumber, and made Allen run for his life on several occasions. Sneed played great, so did Fenton. Jones was a force inside, but not much again from Frank Clark. Kudos to Breeland for holding Diggs to six catches, 77 yards and zero TDs. They knocked the crap out of Mrs Beasley and put him out of the game. Dirty Dan did a decent job on Knox the tight end, and only missed one tackle that I can remember.
3. Buttkicker was perfect on all kicks, and the Chiefs only had to punt one time. So the Bills special teams were limited. The two bad special plays were muffing the punt, and giving up an onside kick. That kick was well executed, but Watts should have come down with the ball. It just ended up giving Buffalo a garbage time TD, making the winning margin 14 instead of 21.
2. The guys who got concussions should be OK by the Super Bowl. Fisher is most likely done for the year if he has a torn achilles. This means from last years Super Bowl line, we’ll be missing both tackles (Fisher and Schwartz) and one guard (LDT). So after seeing Tampa’s pass rush, this will be concerning. One difference is Patrick is more mobile than Rodgers, so he may be able to run away from trouble easier. And his foot should be much better in two weeks. Tampa’s two starting safeties are hurt, and I don’t know if they’ll be back or not. Both teams have guys wounded. We’ll have to watch the injury reports as they develop.
1. We’re headed back to our fourth Super Bowl. So far we’re 2-1. This is the first time one of the participants gets to play in their home stadium, but with the Covid thing, it will still be a sterile, basically neutral site. I don’t know what the price on Super Bowl tickets will be, but it’ll probably be crazy stupid. Scalper tickets downstairs for today’s game were $1700 each. It was great to see another Lamar Hunt trophy find a home in Arrowhead. It took so long to get one, and now that trophy has a twin brother! Very happy for Clark Hunt, and proud of the job the organization did to keep Covid from screwing things up this season. So we’ll see you all again on February 7th, and see if we can get revenge for the 2018 AFC Championship game. Know what would be great? If the game goes into OT, Chiefs win the toss, Patrick marches the team down and scores a TD, and all Tommy Boy can do is stand and watch. That would be karmic payback, and would be the sweetest revenge of all. It's going to be hard to listen to all the Brady Fellatio by the National Press the next two weeks, but it is what it is. Congratulations to all the Chiefs Kingdom and our family here on the Chiefs Planet. Let’s celebrate for a day, then start watching Bucs film. [Reply]
Good read, George!! I was glad to see we got the "techincal issues" in the PAT/FG portion ironed out. Like you said, the D was outstanding today. One gimme TD on the muffed punt and one at garbage time was a far cry from what we've seen too many times over the years. [Reply]
I actually missed the last 4 minutes I guess...my phone was blowing up, and I'd had a few whiskies...which I actually usually don't do during the game so I don't forget anything, but it's the AFCCG...I honestly don't remember the onside kick...yeesh.
THanks for the write up. We are in a crazy good dream baby... [Reply]
Totally agree with not being worried about anyone in the AFC... I figured if the Bills actually prove their legit, then a tip of the cap. But, no one had really proven they were ready to knock off this team.
I think Allen is the best of the young QBs (not named Mahomes, obviously), but that's not necessarily saying a ton and he still has a decent amount to work on.... staring down receivers, the tunnel vision (get rid of the ****ing ball!), putting some finesse on passes and focusing on accuracy versus brute force. The hype surrounding the guy was incredible and given his progress this season, this playoff run should be a huge learning experience.
I do think Clark and the defensive line played pretty well... several "in the grasp" types of plays, and a lot of pressure on Allen overall. Great defensive plan against a young and inexperienced QB.
Totally different story against Brady in a couple weeks, of course.
Yes, but Brady is a statue. Not worried at all about him scrambling. And really, he hasn't played that well in the playoffs. His defense has carried him. [Reply]
Originally Posted by alanm: "7. Hardman made a gigantic bonehead play, muffing a punt inside the ten yard line which gave the Bills their first TD immediately after."
Why are they even trying to field a punt inside the 10? I know most punters have mastered some english on their punts and they hit and bounce backwards or sideways out of bounds. Most punts still hit the ground and roll into the EZ. What ever happened to the golden rule of backing up to the 10 and if it's over your head you let it go. Period. Now it seems like everyone is trying to fair catch inside the 10 or fielding it and then trying to return it. I don't get it. :-):-):-):-)
Yeah, I, too, have been wondering that.
I heard Tyreek had been working on punt returns this week. I wonder if they were ready to put him in the game if Hardman didn't pull his head out of his butt. I guess they decided to give him another chance. [Reply]
Did Carl actually say that? Man, what turd. I used to think he was good for the organization way back in the day. But he wore out his welcome, especially when he hired his buddy, Herm. :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lzen:
Yes, but Brady is a statue. Not worried at all about him scrambling. And really, he hasn't played that well in the playoffs. His defense has carried him.
Yeah, I thought he was impressive in the first half on several of his throws, even if the Packers weren't providing a ton of resistance.... and then kind of fell apart in the 2nd once there was some pressure applied.
The 'different story' is more about Brady getting the ball out quickly and being far better at improvising, even though he's not going to nearly as slippery in the pocket. Allen was hard to get down, but he seemed panicked most of the night and was terrible at improvising a Plan B whenever the receiver he was staring daggers into wasn't open (at one point it was like a coach told him not to forget about his outlets, so that's all he started to do... after all the hype, it was mind boggling to watch).
Loved the defensive effort last night, making the kid who's "now on Mahomes' level" look so lost out there. :-) [Reply]
Did Carl actually say that? Man, what turd. I used to think he was good for the organization way back in the day. But he wore out his welcome, especially when he hired his buddy, Herm. :-)
I still have the letter at home somewhere. It was written in PR speak, but essentially said if you are a season ticket holder, don't bother calling the Chiefs or contacting them because you're not getting a Super Bowl ticket. This is after waiting 23 years to get a shot at going. Then after that loss it was another 27 years AFTER that before Andy won one last year.
So yeah, King Carl was kind of a douche. During his rein we used to say "There's a Chiefs Fan Born Every Minute."
My family has had season tickets for 53 straight years. Some have had them longer, but not too many. [Reply]
It was almost a perfect trifecta of all 3 phases but once again special teams is holding us back. Let's just hope that Andy chews Toub out about his guys even attempting to field punts inside the 10.
Last night I was channeling some sort of ESP. I stood up and pointed out when Clark and Joes lined up next to each other and said here comes a sack. Then I pointed at the safeties and said here comes a pick. Everything was clicking.
I never felt nervous all week either. I knew the Bills were a better matchup than the Browns for us.
If that same effort shows up in Tampa, it'll be a 2 score win for the Chiefs again. [Reply]
