How the Kansas City Chiefs choked away a Super Bowl
The Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in overtime 27-24 on Sunday. Actually, “lost” isn’t quite the right verb for what happened in this game. The Kansas City Chiefs choked away another Super Bowl berth is a much more accurate description of what transpired on the field.
Don’t get me wrong, I give all the credit in the world to the Bengals. They did what they needed to do and earned that win. I’ll be pulling for them in the Super Bowl in two weeks. That having been said, the Chiefs absolutely should have won that game.
Three years ago when the Chiefs lost to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, it was incredibly hard to deal with. There was the Dee Ford offsides penalty that cost them the game. There was Patrick Mahomes and the offense not getting a shot in overtime. There was the fact that we hadn’t been to a Super Bowl in my lifetime. It was brutal, but in a completely different way than this year.
I don’t know if this loss was more or less brutal, but I do know that I’m more frustrated with the team this year than I was after the Patriots loss. I was more heartbroken after that one and I was frustrated then too, but this is different. This time the Chiefs had the game firmly in their grasp and just let it slowly slip away. It was like watching a car wreck where you could see the other car coming from a mile away and for some reason, the Chiefs just couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get their vehicle out of its way.
I know we as Chiefs fans have gotten spoiled with being in four straight AFC Championships and the last two Super Bowls, but these chances are rare, and wasting one is harsh. The trend line of winning a Super Bowl to losing a Super Bowl to losing in the AFC Championship Game isn’t a good one. Who knows if KC will get another chance this good again with this same core group of players? Who knows how many more years Andy Reid is coaching?
Choking away a chance to add another Super Bowl against a team that I believe they were more than capable of beating is hard to stomach and definitely depressing. So what went wrong? Let’s talk it out.