For the third year in a row, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated their opponent in the AFC Championship. They made it to New Orleans, this year’s city hosting the Superbowl and sparking controversy all over the league and throughout the country.
Since the start of star quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ career, he’s been one of the best in the league. He has led his team to the AFC championship every year, and he’s been a starter. That’s around seven to eight years of straight championship appearances with only losing a couple of times.
Since his last Superbowl, Superbowl 58 last year, he has had a record of three wins and one loss in the Superbowl.
With a record like that, it shows the comings of a very strong and impactful dynasty. The Chiefs have been building a powerhouse of a team around Mahomes year after year. Whether it be they draft new players, sign new players, or trade with a different team for new players. Year after year after year, the Chiefs dominate their peers in almost every aspect of the game.
In this year’s AFC Championship game, the Chiefs dismantled their opponent yet again. The score at the final whistle was 32-29 in favor of Kansas City. The Chiefs finished with Mahomes passing for 233 yards, 18/26 completed passes, zero interceptions, and one passing touchdown. He also ran the ball 11 times for 43 yards and two touchdowns, with the longest carry being 12 yards.
The Buffalo Bills ended the game with Josh Allen passing for 227 yards, completing 22/34 of his passes, two touchdowns throwing the ball, and zero interceptions as well. Josh Allen also rushed the ball 11 times, accumulating 39 yards, with the longest rush being 13 yards. However, he also fumbled the ball on three separate occasions, but the Bills did manage to recover all of them. On the other hand, Mahomes fumbled the ball only one time, but they did end up losing that fumble to the Bills.
Another major reason the Chiefs won the game was because they had more first downs than the Bills. The Chiefs ended the game with 28 first downs, and then the Bills finished the game with only 22 first downs. The Bills had only a whopping nine passing first downs and 10 rushing first downs. On the other hand, the Chiefs had a staggering 14 first downs and 10 rushing first downs, just like the Bills. The Chiefs also had more total drives, with 10, and the Bills had only one less at nine total drives.
Usually, having more time of possession and more yards than your opponent is what gets you the win. However, this was not the case in this game. The Bills had the football for a total time of possession of 30 minutes and 32 seconds, which, by the way, is over half of the game. The Chiefs had the ball for just under 30 minutes, sitting at 29 minutes and 28 seconds for time of possession. The Bills, even having lost the game, had more yards than the Chiefs at 374 yards, whilst the Chiefs had slightly less at 368 yards during the game.
Both teams got sacked two different times, but the Chiefs ended up losing more yards from the sack than the Bills did. The Chiefs lost 12 yards off of the sacks, and the Bills only lost 10 yards.
The Chiefs also had a higher average yards per play than the Bills did, which is another reason that led them to their victory. The Chiefs sat at 5.8 yards per play by the end of the game, while the Bills finished the game with 5.5 yards per play. Even though the Bills only had 0.3 fewer yards per play, they still ended up losing. To put it into perspective, the Bills had 374 total yards all game, and the Chiefs only had 368 total yards all game. So even though the Chiefs had fewer total yards than the Bills, they were gaining more yards on each play than the Bills, which is the main reason why the Chiefs beat the Bills in the end. Another example of why the Chiefs ended up beating the Bills was because they had fewer penalties than the Bills and lost fewer yards from the penalties. The Bills tallied six penalties, losing 48 yards from them, and the Chiefs had five penalties, losing 21 yards.
