The NFL’s Conference Title games lived up to the hype and delivered more of the drama that made the divisional round so thrilling. I have continued to stink it up on the picks, going 0-for-6 since staring 6-0 in the Wild Card round, but it’s been fun regardless. Of the predictions, I only got the 49ers and Bengals to cover and the under in the SF/LAR game to manage a measly 3-3. Regardless, the games were still very entertaining and I had fun. If my picks let you down, I’m sorry. Let’s take a look at what happened.
The first game of Championship Sunday saw the Bengals upset the Chiefs in what turned out to be almost an exact duplicate of their Week 17 matchup. It took overtime this time around but, once again, Cincy overcame an 11-point deficit in the second half to win on an Evan McPherson field goal, 27-24.
In the immediate aftermath of the game, most of the narrative on social media has been the “collapse” or “implosion” of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense in the second half. They were 7-point favorites at home, so I get it to some extent but that narrative is a massive disservice to the Bengals’ defense and their defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo. They did an excellent job mixing their fronts and coverages in the second half after trailing 21-10 at halftime.
Kansas City tried to score a TD at the end of the first half rather than just adding a field goal but the play call resulted in no points on the drive. At the time it didn’t seem too bad as KC got the ball to start the second half, but Cincy forced punts on their first two drives of the half and managed a FG to cut it 21-13. The Bengals would intercept Mahomes on the Chiefs’ ensuing possession but they forced his hand with a beautiful zone-blitz trap. Cincy took their best pass rusher, Trey Hendrickson, on 2nd & 3 and lined him up like he was going to go after Mahomes but he dropped back in coverage while the corner, on the other side of the play, blitzed. Mahomes didn’t read it pre-snap (he didn’t even see it until late) and Hendrickson had taken away the route option Mahomes was looking for which allowed DT B.J. Hill to shed his block and get his hands up for the interception.
The Bengals would take advantage, with Joe Burrow finding Ja’Maar Chase 1-on-1 in the endzone for the TD. Trent Taylor would convert the 2-point conversion on a nice arrow route and the game was tied.
At that point, all the pressure was on the Chiefs but they were forced to punt again after Hill and Hendrickson brought Mahomes down for a 9-yard loss on 3rd & 3 to start the 4th quarter. Burrow nearly his team in the hole with a poor throw to Chase that was picked off at the KC 47-yard line. It was exactly the break KC needed but, once again, the Bengals’ defense responded on 3rd & 6, as Hendrickson sacked Mahomes again for an 8-yard loss. On consecutive 3rd down situations the Chiefs are supposed to win, the Bengals’ pressure got home and forced punts.
Cincy took over with just north of 12-minutes remaining in the game and they put together an 11-play, 46-yard drive that took half the remaining time and Evan McPherson gave them the lead on a 52-yard FG. Trailing 24-21 with 6:04 left on the clock, the Chiefs would have one final drive to potentially win it. Mahomes put together his best drive of the second-half, going 5/5 for 38-yards and scrambling for another 8-yards to get KC to 1st & goal at the CIN 4-yard line with 1:30 remaining. The Bengals’ defense was a bit more conservative than they had been to that point in the half, but they rallied once again, as Sam Hubbard sacked Mahomes for a 5-yard loss on 2nd & goal. Facing 3rd & goal, with a chance to win the game, Cincy showed a different look with a 3-man front and blanket coverage. As Mahomes scanned for somewhere to put the ball, Hubbard sprinted from his coverage zone and sack-fumbled Mahomes for a loss of 15-yards (KC recovered the fumble). It was a phenomenal heads-up play and KC’s Harrison Butker came through with a clutch kick of his own to send the game to overtime.
The Chiefs won the coin toss, again, and it looked like, despite a valiant effort from the Bengals, that KC would still find a way to win in OT. However, that Cincy defense had other plans. After incompletions on 1st and 2nd down, Mahomes took a deep shot into double coverage looking for Tyreek Hill to make a play. A play was made but it was safety Jessie Bates III who perfectly timed the deflection and their other safety Von Bell who found the floating ball for the interception.
The Bengals took over just shy of midfield in a “next-score-wins” scenario and they weren’t about to waste it. Burrow hit two key passes to Tee Higgins but it was the Joe Mixon show as he ran them into FG range with 28-yards rushing on the drive. Evan McPherson did what he’s been doing all season and put home the 31-yard FG for the win.
The Bengals are going to the Super Bowl and they deserve their moment in the sun. Cincinnati hadn’t won a playoff game in 32 years heading into this postseason and the last played in the SB in 1989. Kansas City will miss out on their third straight SB appearance and will have a long offseason to reflect on some questionable decisions.
On the other side of the bracket, the Rams are heading to the Super Bowl to represent the NFC after finally snapping a 6-game losing streak to the 49ers. It was dicey there for a while as Los Angeles overcame a 10-point second-half deficit and battled back to take the lead inside the final two minutes of the game.
As anticipated, it was a physical defensive battle from the start. Both teams 3 & outed one another to start the game and then Matthew Stafford threw an interception from 3rd & goal at the San Francisco 3-yard line. The Niners couldn’t get it clicking either and they punted it right back. Starting from their own 3-yard line, the Rams engineered an 18-play, 97-yard drive that resulted in a Cooper Kupp TD (above). Kupp continued to be lethal against the 49ers, hauling in 11-catches for 142-yards and 2-TDs.
The 49ers answered that score with one of their own, thanks to a pair of big plays. Jimmy G found Brandon Aiyuk up the sideline and narrowly missed a breakaway TD but it ended up as a 31-yard gain. Three plays later, Deebo Samuel made his impact on the game with a wide receiver screen where he made some moves, broke a tackle, and then hit the jets to find the endzone beyond Jalen Ramsey (above). The point after tied the game at 7-7 and you just knew it was going to be close the whole way.
The Rams responded with a pretty solid drive but it stalled on a 3rd & 8 incompletion to Odell Beckham Jr. Matt Gay came in to try a 54-yard FG but he pushed it right which kept the game tied and gave the 49ers the ball near midfield, just inside the two-minute warning with all 3-timeouts. Samuel took a vicious but clean hit from Rams’ safety Nick Scott which burned one of the Niners’ TOs and the drive wasn’t looking promising. However, Jimmy G found TE George Kittle to convert the 3rd & 8 and then connected with Aiyuk again to secure FG range before the half expired. Robbie Gould put the 38-yarder right down the middle to give SF the 10-7 lead at the half.
San Francisco got the ball to start the second half but couldn’t cash in but, after they punted, they were able to stop the Rams on a 4th & 1 and get the ball back. It looked like Sean McVay may have wasted a key timeout for the Rams at that juncture. The 49ers took advantage of the short field and drove down to the LA 16-yard line where Jimmy G found Kittle for the TD to make it 17-7. It wasn’t looking great for the Rams as the 3rd quarter came to a close.
Sensing the desperate nature of the situation, the Rams struck quickly, benefitting from a taunting penalty along the way, and Stafford connected with backup TE Kendall Blanton on a pair of big gains before finding Kupp for his second TD of the game. The drive only took three-and-a-half minutes off the clock and cut the lead to 17-14. With the game hanging in the balance, the Rams’ defense played their best football of the game shutting down the 49ers on back-to-back possessions.
Kupp continued to be a matchup headache for the 49ers’ defense and he kept converting 3rd downs like they were going out of style. The Rams were 11-18 on 3rd down and Kupp converted seven of those. While the SF defense kept the Rams out of the endzone, they almost turned the game in a big way. Leading 17-14 inside the 10-minute mark of the 4th quarter, the 49ers’ Jaquiksi Tartt dropped an uncontested, would-be interception. The break allowed the Rams to convert a FG on the drive and the Niners’ defense surrendered another FG on the next drive to put the Rams on top 20-17 inside the game’s final two minutes.
Much had been made about Jimmy G’s play in the postseason and what his future may look like, but heading into the final drive of the game, he was 15/28 for 235-yards and 2-TDs. He had gotten away with a couple of those blind, back-foot throws that make you hold your breath and another one rolling right that he had already been intercepted on in both of SF’s previous playoff games. Nonetheless, he hadn’t made the killer mistake when the Niners got the ball, down by 3-points, inside the game’s final two minutes. Aaron Donald and the Rams’ defense made sure to change that.
They pressured and forced negative yards on the first two plays and on 3rd & 13 Donald burst through the O-line and Jimmy, desperately trying to do something, made the kind of decision that is going to cost him more than a Super Bowl appearance. Spinning and caught in the grasp, rather than go down and try to convert the 4th down, Garoppolo heaved a diving backhand throw that was naturally picked off by Travin Howard to ice the game. It was an unceremonious end for Jimmy G and the Niners. It’ll be tough for SF to bring him back after that and other potential suitors and critics will view that moment as confirmation of the criticism heaped on him throughout the playoffs.
The Rams defense stepped up big when they had to and helped punch their ticket to the Super Bowl. The Rams’ SB loss in 2019 to the Patriots set them on the path the acquiring Jalen Ramsey, who is going to his first SB, and last season’s playoff exit led to their acquisitions of Stafford, OBJ, and Von Miller. The Rams went all-in and they have gotten to where they wanted, playing for the SB at home. Now there’s just one game left and a resilient, young, underdog team standing in their way. We should be in store for a pretty fun Super Bowl.
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