The words of Herm Edwards echoed through my head at the end
of the AFC Championship Game.
While much of the Monday morning quarterbacking is focused
on the Chiefs failure at the end of the first half, I am much more pre-occupied
with their failure at the end of the second half.
Yes, the Chiefs should’ve scored at least three points at
the end of the first half with the ball on the 1-yard line. Time ran out and
they did not. It’s hard for me to get too worked up over that miscue. The Chiefs
were still up 21-10. They were still getting the ball to start the second half.
That play is not why they lost the game.
The scenario that did lose them the game came at the very end, when it seemed a forgone conclusion that the Chiefs were about to re-take the lead and assume their rightful place in the Super Bowl.
However, Andy Reid and the Chiefs decided to play for a tie, and now they’re not playing again for a very, very long time.
Down 24-21, the Chiefs methodically and impressively moved
down the field. No, it wasn’t quite the spectacular late-game performance of a
week prior versus the Bills, but it appeared to be more than enough.
After a crucial first down pass to Travis Kelce, the Chiefs
had a first and goal on the 5-yard line with under 90 seconds to go. The Bengals had no timeouts
left, while the Chiefs had two. They could’ve done anything they wanted.
They had three “and goal” downs and Patrick Mahomes did not
once throw into the end zone. It was the epitome of “scared money don’t win
money” because the Chiefs were too afraid to take the lead.
On first down, despite Travis Kelce being a redzone monster
in the past month, and Patrick Mahomes being a redzone wizard, the Chiefs ran a
simple running play. With Tony Romo questioning on commentary whether the
Bengals should just let them score, the Chiefs didn’t even try to. A simple run
netted barely a yard. The next two plays were passing plays that went backwards,
leading the Chiefs to tie the game on a much longer field goal.
I knew they would lose in overtime before they won the coin
toss. I knew they would lose after that first down run. They wasted a play with the season on the line instead of trying to take the lead.
I don’t know the analytics. I don’t know the percentages. I
only know that the Chiefs were down by three points and had 1st & Goal with
the best player in football playing quarterback for them. Kelce had been
destroying the Bengals all game long. Go for the touchdown, then and there, and
trust your defense.
Instead, Andy Reid decided to play for the worst-case
scenario: a tie game and overtime. I don’t know if Andy Reid had been asleep
for the entire second half, because the Chiefs had been running on fumes for a
couple of hours at that point. Their best chance of winning that game was
scoring a touchdown.
If they scored, even on first down, Joe Burrow and the
Bengals had quite the mountain to climb. They would be down a touchdown with a
minute and change to go, with no timeouts, on the road, in one of the loudest
NFL stadiums. Could they have done it? Sure. Would they have done it? Maybe.
The Chiefs, though, would have been in the driver’s seat.
The other weird retcon of the game is that Joe Burrow and
the Bengals were driving up and down the field on the Chiefs. They scored one
touchdown in the second half. Their final drive in regulation to get a field
goal was impressive, though they didn’t sniff the endzone. They didn't even cross the Chiefs' 30-yard line in the 4th quarter.
The common reaction of NFL talking heads was to ignore this
entire series of events, because there was “risk” involved with the Chiefs
scoring a go-ahead touchdown. I wonder if Andy Reid would have rather been up
28-24 with a minute left or tied 24-24 with zero seconds left?
It was a fitting coda on an NFL season seemingly defined by
4th down risk-taking. In fact, it was the Bengals in the regular season game vs
the Chiefs where they kept going for a touchdown at the goal line when a field
goal would’ve won the game. It was bizarre and sort of crazy in the moment.
Yet, the Bengals were playing to win the game.
At the end of the regular season, the Raiders and Chargers
played one of the most insane games in recent memory, where the Chargers nearly
blew it early by going it for it on 4th down in their own end. People thought
the Chargers coach was nuts. And he probably is. He was playing to win the
game, though, which is the whole point.
As we get ready for the Super Bowl, we will see a matchup of
two teams who desperately played to win the game on Sunday. They beat two teams
who desperately tried to not lose the game.
The 49ers played conservative because they didn’t trust
their quarterback. The Chiefs played conservative because they didn’t trust
their defense.
Both teams will watch the Super Bowl on television like I
will next week. If you’re not playing to win in the playoffs, you’re not going
to.
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