“Time heals all wounds” is a sentiment most people are familiar with, right?
Well it’s going to take a while for fans to get over the Chiefs’ stunning overtime loss to the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game.
Just what happened to the Chiefs? National NFL broadcasters and writers offered their analysis, insights and general observations.
Here’s what is being said.
Kevin Patra of NFL.com wrote “What we learned” from the NFL’s championship games. One of his points of emphasis was the end of the first half.
”On its fourth drive of the game, up 21-10, K.C. drove the ball down the field, 80 yards to the 1-yard-line, with ease,” Patra wrote. “But with zero timeouts left and just five seconds on the clock, (Patrick) Mahomes threw an ill-advised pass to (Tyreek) Hill behind the line of scrimmage. Hill was tackled in the field of play to end the half with added points. Even a field goal would have been a big difference for K.C. entering halftime. Instead, the flub gave Cincy life. For as magical as Mahomes played up to that point, the mental error was a brutal mistake. After that play, the offense never seemed to recover.”
The Washington Post’s Sam Fortier wrote about an adjustment made by the Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo.
“In the second half, Anarumo dropped eight or more defenders into coverage on 45 percent of pass plays, nearly double his first-half rate, according to Next Gen Stats. Anarumo bet on his line to contain Mahomes and his coverage to hold up against elite playmakers. If Mahomes looked discombobulated at the end — dancing in the backfield, looking for a big play, often finding no one — it’s because the Bengals flooded the back end with defenders. Anarumo took away Mahomes’s favorite play.
The Ringer’s Rodger Sherman picked winners and losers from the NFL championship games. One of the losers: Chiefs coach Andy Reid’s clock management.
“On their very first drive of Sunday’s game, the Chiefs gave a third-down carry to fullback Michael Burton, who pretty much always picks up first downs on fourth-and-short,” Sherman wrote. “Burton pretty clearly picked up the first down, but the officials initially ruled him short. Reid made a mistake here. He called a timeout to think about the upcoming fourth-and-1, then decided to throw his challenge flag. …
“This ended up hurting the Chiefs at the end of the first half. Kansas City used both of its remaining timeouts on a drive that went down to the 1-yard line. But with five seconds left in the half, Mahomes threw a mystifying swing pass, which ended the half.
“It’s impossible to say that any one thing cost Kansas City the game. … But the Chiefs should have scored seven points on this drive at the end of the first half, or at least three. They didn’t, because of bad execution and because of Reid’s earlier bad timeout decision.”
ESPN’s Adam Teicher wrote a story with the headline, “Kansas City Chiefs got ‘greedy’ and add another chapter to haunted playoff history.”
“It’s the latest troubled playoff chapter for the Chiefs,” Teicher wrote. “In recent years they wasted a 28-point lead during a loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the wild-card round (2013 season), lost by two points without allowing a touchdown to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round (2016), blew an 18-point lead in a loss to the Tennessee Titans in the wild-card round (2017) and lost in overtime to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game (2018).”
Noted Chiefs fan Nick Wright said: “The final play of the first half was the brain lapse that will ring in infamy. That wrecked him for the rest of the game” on Fox Sports’ “First Things First.”
How is @getnickwright doing after the Chiefs 27-24 OT loss to Bengals in the AFC Championship?
“That was the worst loss that I’ve suffered as a fan of any team, in any situation. And I don’t know that I’ll ever get over it. … How am I doing? Terribly. Will it get better? No.” pic.twitter.com/YmAylr5FlL
— First Things First (@FTFonFS1) January 31, 2022
CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd wrote a story with the headline, “Bengals’ Cinderella run to Super Bowl reached the finish line with a big boost from the Chiefs.”
“(T)he Chiefs were going to have to be active participants in the comeback,” Dodd wrote. “A week after Mahomes became the Grim Reaper, things were just … grim in this Chiefs-crazy locale. About the only sound emitting from 78,000 stunned fans exiting Arrowhead was the scattered squeals of a few Bengals fans.”
Kyle Brandt said on “Good Morning Football” he couldn’t believe how bad the Chiefs played in the second half after an impressive first half. “That was a terrible letdown.”
Looking forward, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer had a note about the Chiefs’ roster.
“The Chiefs have a lot of good, young talent (Nick Bolton, L’Jarius Sneed, Juan Thornhill, Willie Gay, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith) on rookie contracts, which is a must after you pay your quarterback like Kansas City did,” Breer wrote.