The Kansas Metropolis Chiefs are on their strategy to one other Tremendous Bowl after defeating the Baltimore Ravens, 17-10, throughout Sunday’s AFC Championship recreation.
It’s the Chiefs’ fourth Tremendous Bowl look up to now 5 seasons, and in contrast to earlier years the place quarterback Patrick Mahomes was the star, it’s the different facet of the ball that helped get them there.
Listed here are three takeaways from the Chiefs’ win on Sunday.
1. The Chiefs protection is why it’s within the Tremendous Bowl
The Ravens protection obtained a lot of the headlines this season and within the build-up to this recreation, however all people appeared to overlook the Chiefs have been — statistically talking — simply nearly as good this season. They confirmed that on Sunday with a masterclass efficiency as they utterly shut down one of many NFL’s highest scoring offenses and made life depressing for quarterback Lamar Jackson.
The Chiefs pressured three turnovers, together with two in the long run zone, sacked Jackson 4 occasions and largely restricted his huge performs on the bottom. They held him to simply 54 yards speeding on eight makes an attempt. He had 21 yards on only one play, that means he gained simply 23 on the opposite seven carries.
Mahomes remains to be nice and arguably the most effective participant in soccer. He nonetheless made loads of huge performs this season and on Sunday. However this was statistically the worst Chiefs offense of his tenure, with by far the weakest group of broad receivers on paper.
It was the protection that constantly stood up all season and carried them alongside.
They did it once more on Sunday to get them to a different Tremendous Bowl.
The Chiefs completed the common season with the No. 2 scoring protection within the NFL. They performed their finest recreation of the season on Sunday.
2. The Ravens self destructed
The Ravens not solely performed one in all their worst video games of the season, in addition they performed one in all their dumbest video games. They utterly self destructed from a self-discipline standpoint, handing the Chiefs factors and taking away potential factors of their very own.
Baltimore was flagged for 2 private foul penalties on Kansas Metropolis’s ultimate possession of the primary half, serving to transfer the Chiefs into discipline purpose vary to take a 10-point lead. With out these penalties, the Chiefs don’t get into vary for Harrison Butker.
Issues solely obtained worse within the third quarter when rookie broad receiver Zay Flowers single-handedly stalled a drive.
After catching a 54-yard move to set the Ravens up deep in Chiefs territory, he was flagged for taunting to push them again to the 25-yard line. Simply a few performs later he gave the impression to be entering into for a landing solely to have the ball knocked out of his arms on the purpose line, leading to a Chiefs restoration in the long run zone. He added to the frustration when he reduce his hand slamming it on the bench in disgust.
Following a Justin Tucker discipline purpose to chop the deficit to 17-10 late within the fourth quarter, Baltimore’s protection got here out on the following sequence, desperately needing a cease, and opened up by taking a 12-men on the sector penalty on the primary snap. Then gave the Chiefs one other free 15 yards when linebacker Patrick Queen was referred to as for pointless roughness.
It was a brutal exhibiting. It appeared like a crew that was not prepared for the large stage and the intense lights.
3. Lamar Jackson’s playoff struggles returned
This has all the time been the large “yeah, however” relating to Jackson’s profession, and he did a number of work to silence these critics with an enormous efficiency every week in the past towards the Houston Texans within the divisional spherical.
Those self same critics may have cause to speak about his playoff performances once more after this one.
Jackson made two beautiful spotlight reel performs within the first half — his Houdini escape act to finish a landing move to Flowers; after which finishing a move to himself — however he was largely ineffective past that.
He fumbled as soon as, threw a horrible interception into triple protection in the long run zone with the sport on the road, and accomplished simply 20-of-37 passes. He missed open receivers down discipline and he completed with a passer score of simply 75.5. That’s 27.2 factors decrease than his common season mark (102.7).
Jackson is now simply 2-4 in his playoff profession and has thrown as many interceptions (six) as he has touchdowns in these video games.
