The Kansas City Chiefs fell to a surprise defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game and therefore failed to make it to the Super Bowl for the third straight season.
In a tightly fought contest, the Bengals, led by in-form quarterback Joe Burrow, edged past the Chiefs at the Arrowhead 27-24 in overtime when a Patrick Mahomes pass was intercepted by Vonn Bell before Evan McPherson converted the all-important field goal from 31 yards to book the Bengals into their first Super Bowl since 1988 as they look for their first-ever title.
From the beginning of the season, the Kansas City Chiefs had been seen as the favorites with most sportsbooks, as evidenced by comparison site sidelines, and when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Green Bay Packers fell by the wayside in the NFC playoffs, it seemed as if it was all set up for a Mahomes-led triumph, but it wasn’t to be.
26-year-old Mahomes, into his fifth season at Kansas, took the defeat badly and felt that he was to blame for the overtime loss, commenting;
“When you’re up 21-3 in a game, you can’t lose it, and I put that on myself,”
“I was supposed to throw the ball away,”
“I got a little greedy there and tried to give it to Tyreek and get a touchdown; they had two people out there. In the long run of things, it looks bad, but if we had another chance, I’d go for another play again.” Mahomes added.
And while that may be true in some respects, you can’t look past the efforts put in by Mahomes that have seen Kansas compete at the highest level for three seasons in a row.
Mahomes now has a regular-season record of 50-13 and is 8-3 in playoff action, and he posted some very strong numbers, but ultimately it wasn’t to be.
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was also seemingly deflated after the game, wondering what might have been;
“I was hoping we could get the ball in the end zone,”
“I probably gave him the wrong play first of all. To start with, I could’ve given him something better than that, where the play was open in the end zone, and then we wouldn’t have had to go through that. I’ll take responsibility for that one.”
Kansas City will no doubt challenge for the title next season and are already seen as one of the big teams to beat, especially now that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers don’t have a certain Tom Brady to count upon.
Mahomes has already made a massive impact in a relatively short period of time, taking the Chiefs to the AFC Championship game in his four full seasons, winning two and losing two, and you can guarantee he’ll bounce back to make an impact in the coming years.
In many ways, Mahomes is the logical successor to the Brady crown, though clearly with one Super Bowl ring to his name, he is some way off the seven the former New England Patriots star racked up over the course of his 22-season career.