Chiefs shut down Ravens, advance to Super Bowl
Tyler Brown
Thanks to a dominating performance by the Chiefs' offense in the first half and a more than dominant performance by the Chiefs' defense throughout the entire game, Kansas City is returning to the Super Bowl in back-to-back seasons and for the fourth time in five seasons.
While the Baltimore Ravens ended up outgaining the Chiefs on the day, Kansas City did enough to win the AFC Championship game through their first-half performance and opportunistic defense. Even though the Chiefs did not score after half-time, they controlled the game throughout. They held the ball 15 more minutes than Baltimore and wound up winning an old-school-type football game, 17-10 to advance to the Super Bowl.
“You don’t take it for granted … You never know how many you’re going to get to or if you’re going to get to any,” Mahomes said. “It truly is special just to do it with these guys after what we’ve been through all season long, guys coming together. It really is special, but I told them, (the) job’s not done. Our job now is to prepare ourselves to play a good team in the Super Bowl and go get that ring.”
The Chiefs game plan seemed simple enough. Head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes targeted tight end Travis Kelce early and often. Before halftime began, Kelce tallied nine catches for 96 yards and finished the day with 11 catches on 11 targets for 116 yards to go with his back-shoulder touchdown catch on the Chiefs' first drive of the game.
“Travis (Kelce) is always fired up,” Reid said. “He’s always fired up. But in the playoffs, he is even more so. I never worry about him being ready to go. He’s always right there. (He) brings that emotion to the guys, that secure feeling that we’re going to go get this thing no matter what … I appreciate his attitude, always.”
Reid called a very conservative game in the second half, knowing how dominant his defense was playing. At halftime, the Ravens only had five first downs, 110 yards gained and seven points. Kansas City got out to 17 first-half points by way of a 19-yard Kelce touchdown, a two-yard rush by running back Isiah Pacheco and a 52-yarder by kicker Harrison Butker as time was expiring.
The Ravens' seven points in the first half came on a 30-yard touchdown pass from Lamar Jackson to wide receiver Zay Flowers where Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton was mismatched in coverage. Even that play felt like a freebie after Kansas City linebacker Leo Chenal had Jackson in his grasp in the backfield before Jackson slipped away and launched it to Flowers. That was the only touchdown the Ravens scored on the Chiefs' defense all day.
The only scoring between any team in the second half did not come until the Ravens were able to put a scoring drive together at the end of the game with just over two minutes left. That came on a nine-play drive where Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker nailed a 43-yard field goal.
While the Ravens' defense shut out the Chiefs' offense throughout the entirety of the second half, Kansas City was able to string together enough offense to not let the Ravens get the ball back again following the field goal. For the second week in a row wide receiver Marquez Valdez-Scantling stepped up in a big way.
With just over two minutes to go in the game, on a third and nine, Mahomes lofted one up to Valdez Scantling for a 32-yard gain that took them into the two-minute warning. With no timeouts left, there was nothing left to do for the Ravens as Mahomes kneeled it out three times coming out of the two-minute warning.
It is the second road game in a row the Chiefs won on the road in this latest playoff stretch, with the first coming in Buffalo. This is one of the toughest roads to the Super Bowl the Chiefs have had, defeating the high-powered Miami Dolphins, the talented Buffalo Bills and the one-seeded Baltimore Ravens. Easily the key to the Chiefs' win over the Ravens was their landslide victory in the turnover battle.
Kansas City forced three turnovers, while the Chiefs stayed clean the entire game. The first turnover was a strip-sack by defensive end Charles Omenihu, the second was a forced fumble by cornerback L’Jarius Sneed and the third was an interception by safety Deon Bush.
As it turns out, the Chiefs were not able to turn any of these turnovers into points, but it directly kept the Ravens off the scoreboard. None were bigger than the one that Sneed forced. It was a 17-7 game at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and Baltimore was about to make it a three-point game.
Flowers, who ended the day with 115 yards, caught a short pass from Jackson and dove for the endzone. As he extended, Sneed threw a punch at the ball, forcing a fumble on the half-yard-line that cornerback Trent McDuffie recovered in the endzone.
That play followed a sequence where Flowers caught a deep pass on Sneed and the rookie receiver proceeded to push Sneed into the ground and stood over him, spinning the ball on the ground, receiving a personal foul for taunting. Sneed got up like nothing happened and made the biggest play of the game on Flowers just a couple of plays later.
The Chiefs then chewed four minutes off the clock with seven plays but were eventually forced to punt, giving Baltimore the ball right back. Safety Mike Edwards was forced out by injury at the beginning of that Ravens drive and Bush replaced him. Baltimore went on a 12-play, 74-yard drive, but on a second and 10 from the Chiefs 25, Jackson threw it into triple coverage that Bush jumped in front of and hauled it in to set the Chiefs up to chew off some more clock.
The Ravens then forced the Chiefs into another three-and-out and went on to kick that field goal that made it a one-possession game. It did not matter, of course, because Baltimore never saw the ball again. Again, it was the turnover differential that made all the difference in the world. Coming into the game the Ravens finished first in the NFL in turnover differential and the Chiefs finished tied for 29th with a minus-11 ratio.
Enough can’t be said about the performance of the Chiefs' defense. The Ravens came in finishing the season first in the league, rushing for over 156 yards per game. Just last week the Kansas City defense allowed over 180 yards rushing to the Bills. This week, however, the Ravens were able to muster just 81 yards rushing and 54 of those came from the quarterback.
Jackson did end up tossing for 272 yards but most of that came from the Chiefs playing conservative defense, being up by double digits for nearly 30 minutes. For reference as to how dominant the Chiefs were in the first half, Jackson only tossed for 67 yards in the first half.
“I thought we did a great job,” Reid said. “That’s an explosive offense. You start looking at categories of efficiency and they’re number one in a few spots there. You got to make sure when you come in with that you keep that quarterback (Jackson) somewhat in the pocket the best you can. He’s an unbelievable competitor … (Spagnulo) had a variety of things he was throwing at the offense and I thought our guys did a nice job with all that.”
Mahomes’ performance, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He finished with 241 yards passing and one touchdown, but that touchdown and 161 of those yards came in the first half. Again though, in the second half, many of those passes were short or behind the line of scrimmage and Pacheco took 10 carriers in the second half as well.
The Baltimore defense deserves a lot of credit for their second-half performance regardless of how Reid called the plays. Pacheco finished with 68 yards, but only averaged 2.8 yards per carry. It was still imperative to establish the run for Kansas City though, because it kept the clock ticking.
The other pass catcher who stepped up for the Cheifs was rookie Rashee Rice, who hauled in eight of his nine catches for 46 yards. Valdez-Scantling ended with 38 yards and was the Chiefs third-leading receiver.
Not only did the Chiefs' defense tally three turnovers, but they also sacked Jackson four times. Aside from Omenihu, defensive end George Karlaftis, safety Justin Reid and defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton all brought him down.
Another area the Chiefs dominated was the penalty margin. The Chiefs only committed three penalties for 30 yards, but the Ravens were called for eight for 95. The game was chippy and four of those Baltimore penalties were personal fouls that accumulated to 15 yards each.
Kansas City has come a long way since their last loss on Christmas Day against the Las Vegas Raiders. They are now on a five-game win streak and the offense has found a way to find a rhythm while limiting mistakes.
Two weeks from now the Kansas City Chiefs (11-6) head to Las Vegas to have a rematch from Super Bowl 54. In Super Bowl 58, the Chiefs will again take on the San Francisco 49ers (12-5). Kickoff is set for 5:30 CDT on Sunday, February 11th.
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