Then there were four. After witnessing one of the best weekends of football in NFL history, it’s time to shift our focus to Championship Sunday. The Divisional round was one to behold as we saw all four road teams win in walk-off fashion. Sunday features two quarterbacks who’ve been to a Super Bowl and two who are making their first-ever appearance in a championship game. These are two strong matchups and if last weekend was any indication of how Championship Sunday will turn out, we are in for some great football.
AFC Championship Sunday Preview
Bengals vs Chiefs
Date: Sunday, January 30th
Time: 3:00 ET
TV: CBS
To start Championship Sunday, the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. The Bengals got big performances all game on both sides of the ball last week. On offense, they had three receivers over 70 yards. Most notably, Ja’Marr Chase caught five passes for 109 yards and Tee Higgins caught seven passes for 96 yards. Joe Burrow threw for 348 yards and looked poised in the big moments. Even though no touchdowns were thrown through the air, the offense was explosive and did enough to win the game while Evan McPherson kicked yet another game-winning field goal.
The offensive line was just horrendous and almost single-handedly lost them the game. The Bengals gave up a whopping nine sacks and allowed Burrow to be under duress almost the entire game. Luckily, the defense stepped up and prevented the Titans from capitalizing. They picked off Ryan Tannehill three times with one of them being on the first play of the game. The Bengals’ defense will have to play like they did last weekend and maybe a little better when they face this Chiefs’ offense.
The Bengals were 13 seconds away from having to face the Bills on Championship Sunday until Patrick Mahomes happened. The Kansas City Chiefs defense gave up a touchdown to trail by seven with 13 seconds left in the game, making it seem all but over. That wasn’t the case at all as even with little time left, Mahomes drove the ball down the field with Travis Kelce and finished it off with a touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill, who out-ran everyone to score and sent the game to overtime. The Chiefs won the coin toss and that was all she wrote as Kelce caught the game-winning touchdown.
Mahomes threw for 378 yards and three touchdowns, but he was also instrumental on the ground with 69 yards and a touchdown. Hill caught 11 passes for 150 yards and a touchdown while Kelce caught eight passes for 96 yards and a touchdown. This offense is lethal, it’s just a question if the defense can stay afloat. Skepticism arose towards the end of the season about the defense and yesterday didn’t help. Even though winning cures all, that side of the ball can’t get a pass as they allowed 329 yards through the air and four touchdowns, all four going to Gabriel Davis. They also let Josh Allen run crazy as Mahomes did.
One strong area about this team was that they kept leading running back Devin Singletary to only 26 rushing yards. We know what both of these offenses are made of but all eyes will be on how both defenses will perform. Even though the Chiefs have more firepower than the Titans, the Bengals are hoping to resemble their defensive performance from last week.
Kansas City on the other hand is looking to play better on that side of the ball. They need to not only contain the passing game but the run game with Joe Mixon, who is a versatile threat. Last week, we saw him rush for 54 yards and a touchdown while also having 51 yards through the air. This game is expected to come down to the wire, something both teams experienced and overcame last week.
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