It’s the upstarts versus the old hands in the AFC Championship game Sunday.
The Bengals are making their first appearance in the AFC title game since January 1989. The Chiefs are hosting the AFC title game for a record fourth straight year. The Bengals have not been to the Super Bowl since that 1988 season. The Chiefs are trying to get back to the big game for the third straight year.
“I think it helps this time of year having a pretty good idea of what this is all about,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said. “They know how we go about our business, the intensity, whether it’s practice or what we expect out of the game.”
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor was in elementary school when Boomer Esiason and Ickey Woods were facing the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIII. Most of Cincinnati’s players were not even alive.
“We’re excited about the opportunity,” said Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who was born in 1996. “If you want to do the things that we want to do, that’s a team that you’re going to have to beat every single year. The AFC has run through them for four straight years.
“So, you know, we’re excited about the opportunity. We’re gonna have a great week of practice and be ready to go.”
The Chiefs pulled off one of the most improbable wins in NFL history last week when they somehow found a way to tie the Bills after falling behind by three points with 13 seconds left, then won in overtime. Now, they are trying to build off that and return to the Super Bowl, which they lost to the Buccaneers last year after winning it all in the 2019 season. The Chiefs could become just the fourth team to play in three straight Super Bowls — joining the Dolphins (1971-73), Bills (1990-93) and Patriots (2016-18).
“It was an awesome game and win that we’ll remember forever,” Mahomes said of beating the Bills, “but we’re not done. We’re trying to get out there and win an AFC championship and try to get to the Super Bowl.”
This is a rematch of a Week 17 game (Jan. 2), when the Bengals beat the Chiefs in Cincinnati, 34-31. That game ended with an Evan McPherson 20-yard field goal as time expired. Burrow threw for 446 yards and four touchdowns that day.
The Chiefs were written off early in the season after losing three of their first seven games. They turned things around, though, and the Cincinnati game is their only loss since October.
“I think I just saw the persistence and the championship swagger, I guess you would say, of the team we have,” Mahomes said. “Guys didn’t hang their head. They just wanted to get better. I think that process of every day getting better and better has put us in this situation now, and we don’t want to come up short. We want to keep this process going, and get better, and try to leave our best football out there on the football field.”