Tag: chiefs bengals afc chamopnship

AFC Championship All-22: How the Bengals can beat the Chiefs

What do the Bengals need to do to beat the Chiefs again, besides show up and do what they did before? Doug Farrar has a few ideas.

Perhaps the best thing the Cincinnati Bengals can do to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday’s AFC Championship game is to… well, show up and do what they’ve done before. The Bengals have famously beaten the Chiefs in each of their last three matchups, and in each of those games, defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo’s halftime adjustments (which exist, no matter what Peyton Manning says) have made life pure hell for Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes’ first-half/second-half and overtime splits in those three losses, including last season’s loss in last season’s AFC Championship game, could not be much more stark.

Mahomes in the first halves: 43 completions in 57 attempts (75.4%) for 503 yards (8.8 yards per attempt), 267 air yards (4.7 yards per attempt), six touchdowns, no interceptions, one sack, 19 pressures, and a passer rating of 136.8.

Mahomes in the second halves/OT: 25 completions in 44 attempts (56.8%) for 253 yards (5.8 yards per attempt), 129 air yards (2.9 air yards per attempt), no touchdowns,  two interceptions, five sacks, 20 pressures, and a passer rating of 54.5.

Anarumo will no doubt have all kinds of bear traps for Mahomes in Sunday’s game, and that process will be accentuated to a greater or lesser degree by how much mobility Mahomes has with the high ankle sprain he suffered in the divisional round against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Anarumo-Mahomes battle is the most obvious deciding tilt in this game. If the Bengals are to beat the Chiefs for the fourth straight time, and head to their second straight Super Bowl, they’ll also have to follow these particular bullet points.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Football Outsiders, Sports Info Solutions, and Pro Football Focus unless otherwise indicated). 

Patrick Mahomes can win from the pocket. But can he do it against the Bengals?

Can an injured Patrick Mahomes win from the pocket against a Bengals defense that’s had his number when he’s been healthy?

Perhaps the most compelling storyline of the upcoming conference championship games is the status of Patrick Mahomes’ right ankle. The Kansas City Chiefs’ superstar quarterback suffered a high ankle sprain in Saturday’s 27-20 divisional round win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he has already vowed that he’ll play this Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals on a no-matter-what basis.

The question then becomes, what kind of Mahomes will we see? Probably not the one who’s able to make ungodly plays outside the pocket, but it’s not as if Mahomes is overly reliant on second-reaction plays. This season, per Sports Info Solutions, no quarterback has thrown more touchdown passes from the pocket than Mahomes’ 34. Interestingly enough, Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow ranks second with 32 touchdown passes from the pocket.

Mahomes has completed 391 of 552 passes (70.8%) from the pocket for 4,598 yards (8.3 yards per attempt), 1,953 air yards, those 34 touchdowns, nine interceptions, and a passer rating of 109.6. Only San Francisco’s Brock Purdy (114.6) and Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts (111.7) have better passer ratings from the pocket this season, so maybe there’s still something to being able to make big plays from the pocket.

So, that’s not a problem. Of course, as Mahomes said after the Jaguars game, there is the matter of planting on, and throwing from, an unstable base and an injured ankle. He’ll have a week to get actual treatment to prepare for that, but that’s where things could get interesting against a Bengals defense that has messed with his head consistently as few other defenses have through his NFL career.

“There were a couple throws here and there where I tried to plant off that foot and it didn’t let me plant like I usually do, and so, [there were] a couple throws I didn’t make. I told [head] Coach [Andy Reid] I want to still throw it downfield, and so we were able to make some throws there after the first few drives. I think he got a little confidence that I can protect myself. So credit to our defense holding us in that game, especially after the start of that second half when I wasn’t able to get stuff going. They held us in the game, made some big plays at the end, and we were able to score enough points to win.”

True, but Mahomes will now face that Bengals defense — the same one he’s struggled to beat time after time. How can he turn that frown upside down if he is indeed landlocked in the pocket?