Five unexpected heroes who stepped up for Chiefs vs Bengals
By Matt Conner
Let’s look at five unexpected heroes who stepped up against the Cincinnati Bengals and helped the K.C. Chiefs head to another Super Bowl.
The Kansas City Chiefs are your 2022 Lamar Hunt Trophy winners, the best team in the AFC, and the official representative for the conference in Super Bowl LVII. Any game like this is going to be full of heroes, and in the hours and days to come, we’ll hear plenty from some of those figures like Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and Chris Jones.
While any win, especially one of this magnitude, is a product of everyone involved—from the front office to coaches to players—the truth is that this particular win also saw a handful of players who weren’t necessarily expected to shoulder a load step up and deliver a victory in such a close game.
We don’t often hear about these players, so with their contributions so important and fresh, we wanted to point them out first and praise them for stepping up as they did.
Jaylen Watson
Back when Jaylen Watson caught his first-ever NFL interception, way back in Week 2 when he took a Justin Herbert pass for 99 yards for a pick-six to seal a victory over the Los Angeles Chargers, the joke at that point was that the draft investment to select him was already worth it.
Watson came into the NFL as an overlooked draft prospect who might have gone unselected if general manager Brett Veach hadn’t used a seventh-round pick on him. Veach liked his raw potential out of Washington State, and Watson proved a quick enough study in the preseason to overtake others on the depth chart and earn immediate playing time.
By midseason, the Chiefs loved their new young corners enough to trade away Rashad Fenton and the kids have kept growing from there. Watson has turned in consecutive games in the postseason with an interception, having caught one from Trevor Lawrence in the Divisional Round and one in the first half against Joe Burrow.
Shop Kansas City Chiefs AFC Champions Gear Now
The Chiefs have to be thrilled knowing that Watson has another three years under contract as part of a young secondary with tons of room for growth. Together with Trent McDuffie, L’Jarius Sneed, and Joshua Williams, this depth chart will look impressive for quite some time.