Whah-oww.
I was tracking things like I usually do for these kinds of affairs, you know, Chiefs playoff games when we've always seemed to be so painfully afflicted by those stupid things to happen to us. And yes, in this one, there were a number of huge ones. The injuries and the Mahomes fumble were the most egregious. But hey, there were some very very very very very nice unstupid things that happened for us too. I thought I'd share with you here the Ten Major Wonderful Things That Happened in Favor of the Chiefs.
In order:
1. The crowd noise. The fans came to play today. It had much more of an impact early, but I have to think they kept it up enough to keep the Bengals at bay enough late when it counted the most.
2. The Mahomes-to-Kelce TD. Patrick held it just enough there in the pocket before getting crunched to see Kelce get position in the end zone for the score. On 4th-&-1 no less.
3. The D-line's ferocity. We definitely knew we needed it today, and got it. It was particularly effective early resulting in four sacks. Later the Bengals brought in help and their fine QB Joe Burrow started making connections. But there were still enough times when he didn't get the pass or had to ditch it.
4. Marquez Valdes-Scantling's play, throughout the game but in particular that series when his sudden stretch to get a clutch first down that was initially called short but reviewed in the Chiefs' favor. Just a play or two later he caught the TD pass to make it 20-13 us. What made his play that much more significant is we lost Toney, Smith-Schuster, and Hardman to injuries relatively early in the game. Wow did we need him to produce today, and he did.
5. The McDuffie tip. Again, the step-it-up play of those rookie D-backs, you can't give them enough credit. This particular play kept them from getting a 1st down late in the 3rd quarter forcing a punt.
6. The Cook-tip-to-Williams-pick. Bryan Cook was overly wild today, not quite being in position (just being a rookie, it's all good) and committing a critical PI. But when it counted most he came through, batting up a long perfectly thrown Burrow pass so Joshua Williams could intercept it stopping the Bengals late in the 4th quarter.
7. The Chris Jones Sack. Okay, melodramatic giving it a cap, but it was awesome. The Bengals had been moving the ball from their own 6 at the start of their last drive -- all they needed was to get into FG range to win it. On 3rd down with :48 left, the ball at their 35 yard-line, it was on. Or rather, Joe Burrow went down. They had to punt...
8. With our regular punt returners Toney and Hardman out, Skyy Moore was back there, the guy who was demoted when he simply couldn't cleanly field punts. He did great with the fielding thing on a number of punts, and he did even greater with his return on that last punt. He took it and shot up the right sideline getting all the way to midfield. :40 left for us to get into FG range, and all I could think about was 13 seconds -- if we did it last year we can do it again with 40.
9. The Mahomes' run for the first down at :08. On 3rd-&-4. From midfield. On the bum leg. Really, limping around all game he was just less-than-Mahomes, he was, nothing against him. In fact, this run was everything for the guy, the gamer that he is. After he sprinted to the sideline as much as you could sprint on that ankle, he got that first down then a Bengals defender shoved him when he was clearly beyond the area allowed for contact out-of-bounds. The personal foul penalty got us the extra yardage...
10. Butker does nail the 45-yarder. His kicking has been rails the past few games, and it was this game too, solid kick-offs including the squibber to end it, three FGs, two PATs, every one of those points needed today.
There are any number of things we could add, but it can't be emphasized enough how amazing the play of Patrick Mahomes was. particularly since he got hammered over and over again back there in the pocket. Again, it wasn't the perfect Mahomes effort -- we knew all he had to do was be decent -- and that he was. In light of all that he endured, the leg, the pass rush pressure, the having to face an excellent Bengals defense, the not really having much of a running game today -- what a heroic effort.
Now the real question is what about the injuries. Besides those three receivers we also lost Willie Gay and L'Jarius Sneed -- two guys we couldn't afford to lose.
Now on to the Super Bowl again! -- How amazing that we're saying that on a somewhat regular basis.
Oh wow!
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The image is from Andrew Mather at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.
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