I had feared that after the for awesome games division around,
we were going to get the Bengal stepping into a buzz saw. It
was playing out the way I thought it would. We're going
to talk about that AFC Championship game right out of
the gates and kind of try to figure out what happened
because Mike for it to go from 21 to 3,
the Chiefs firing on all cylinders
Patrick Mahomes 18 421
with three touchdowns in the first half.
He fell off a cliff. Like, I've never seen an elite player fall
off a cliff halfway through a game ever before
that. I can remember. Maybe they're maybe it's happened
before years ago. I can't remember it. It was stunning.
And it's still hard to process for a while. I thought that
maybe he got injured or something, and we didn't
recognize it. I went back and watched the first half last
night. Nothing that stood out. It was just the adjustments.
The Bengals made
at halftime the completely flummoxed achieved
offense in the second half.
So, you know, that's obviously what we're going to get into
there were adjustments made and I've always interested in
a third quarter. How does a team come out from adjustments that
were made at halftime and then do just
to the adjustments and we'll get into that. But
as a former player
you take little moments, right? So you're getting beat pretty
good. But then all of a sudden Kansas City doesn't score at
the end of the half, so while you're still getting basically
bludgeoned, right?
You go in and half time and you're like,
Like, okay, they screwed that one up.
You know, they no way, Pat should have thrown that ball,
you know, not in the end zone. We make a nice tackle. They
don't get any points at all out of that.
So, okay, you know, maybe there's just a little bit
honest. Now, just a little bit going forward. And that's what
you hold onto, because when you're going into halftime
getting beat that bad, you got to have something to look
forward to, obviously the adjustments, you're going
to make for sure,
but you also have to have something that happened.
The field. And this was it.
They are at least going to get three out of this. Everybody's
thinking. And or they're going to get seven and they get
a goose egg. They get nothing and I know Andy Reid said it was on
him. He gave a bad play
call there, but that's on Mahomes. That is absolutely.
I'm Pat Mahomes. The first look is in the end zone. The second
look is to throw it away and he didn't he even admitted he got
greedy and they came away with nothing.
And I think the psychology of that moment leaving the door
open for The Bangles. They went into the locker room down 11,
just like they did
in week 17 down 11 and ultimately won by three. Just
like they did in week 17, but I think that that there's
a different mindset to those single and elimination games,
especially as you get closer and closer to the championship
and
to have something go Haywire to have your momentum, get
disrupted in a dramatic way to have a Inflicted wound. It's
one thing to try to come back from it during a regular season
game
when everything's riding on it.
And you do give that
that extra opportunity
that second life. When
the other team does The Undertaker sitting upright GIF
that that that's a recipe for disaster
and not even a great team. Like the Chiefs was able
to turn it back on again. If any team I thought
was able to have the gas pedal match to the Ground, Mike and
then slip off and then find it. Again. It's the Chiefs because
they've shown us, they can they can flip the switch
at will and I thought they would late in the game and they
just seem tentative late in the game. They seemed concerned.
They seemed almost resigned to what was going to happen. We're
not used to the Chiefs behaving
that way.
Yeah. Well, no, we're not but that's where you give credit to
the Cincinnati Bengals
in making the adjustments that they made when you're dropping
eight. You know, a little more and Pat Mahomes is having
trouble with that, when they're not running, maybe more when
they should to help out the offense as well.
That's something that we've talked about the Chiefs
over the years. Be, but they've been so successful, Mike, doing
what they've done. So we're remember early in the era when
he's playing that deep cover to on them daring, Pat Mahomes to
go underneath and he still wanted to go over the top.
I talked to Annie read about halfway through the
season about that. And he said, yeah, you know, we're used to
having success there. Pat's going to have to learn. We got
to learn to
Check it down a little bit because that's only going to
help you you check it down. The defense has to come down
a little bit and then you can take your shot. So we started
to do that a little more
and then all of a sudden toward the end of the season.
This offense started looking like the offense of old that
were they could baby. Basically do what they want to do. Well,
Cincinnati made some adjustments. They weren't able
to do what they wanted to do
and they didn't make enough adjustments out of that.
So kudos to Cincinnati.
You can make all the adjustments. You want Mike.
Then you have to execute them.
You have to say, Okay. We think this is going to work out, but
you still have to beat the guy in front of you. Or when you
drop an 8, make sure you don't, you know, your eyes aren't
drifting where they shouldn't
or you're not moving out of your Zone. Like you shouldn't
and so that has to be executed correctly
and it was and the Chiefs really didn't have an answer for that.
Let's go back to late in the first half and the way it was
going 2:39. It felt like it was just a question of whether it
would be the Super Bowl. We got in 2019 or the Super Bowl. We
kind of hoped we were going to get in 2018 after they had
that epic Monday night game. That was supposed to be in
Mexico City 54-51. We thought we were going to get that we
thought were going to get it now. We thought it was going to
be Chiefs Ramsey Chiefs 49ers. Then the Bengals score
on the long catch and run by semaj appear on. Make a 21-10
Minato for a minute, five left in the half
and the Chiefs, get it in position. And
we talked about it, a little while ago, that fateful
decision with five. Laughs to give it one more try in lieu of
taking the field goal and making it 24 10. Let's hear
from Andy Reid. Coach to the Chiefs, and Pat Mahomes
the starting quarterback regarding that last play at
the end of the half.
Yeah. So I was, you know, I was hoping we could get get
the ball Nails on, I probably gave him the wrong place. First of
all, so
to start with, could have given him something better than that
where the play was open in the end zone, and
then we wouldn't have to go through that.
At. But it's,
I'll take responsibility for that one out. Yeah, we had
just, we just ran a play, took 4 seconds to play before
where I burned it. So I knew the time
was low. Obviously a new, we need to get points.
We call it a play that we're trying to get someone over
the middle quick,
and then I was probably supposed throw the ball away.
I got greet. I got a little greedy there and try to give
the Tyree can get a touchdown that two people out there.
So definitely, I mean,
in the long run of things.
Bad, but if we had another chance article, I would have
went for another play again.
Hey,
well, yeah, I guess because you have a better chance of getting
it the next time, right? Flip a coin one game one time you get
it one time you don't but I knew the minute e throw it.
It's like hey Tyree kills great, but he's not so fast and
he can run through a wall or jump over a wall.
There was no pathway through the Bangles that were there to
keep him from getting into the end zone. Eli. Apple makes the
tackle and that, that was just that, that, oh
wait,
Wait a minute. Something's not right here. And so the Chiefs
carry that down to the locker room and the Bengals carry
that. Hey, they let us hang around. We're going to go take
it from.
Yeah. Now again carry the doubt in the locker room. I don't
know if that play affected their play in the second half.
But I because it's one of those things you better forget about
quickly.
And again, Andy trying to take the responsibility to their
your heard Pat Mahomes. Just say we just ran a play before
that and you saw how quickly the play was run.
And it burned for S.
So he knew exactly the clock in his head.
He said it. He and that's why I said it before. He said it, he
got greedy instead of just making sure you got the three.
He threw it, to his guy who thought he could make a play.
And he died. Apple was there and if you're trying to cut
back, Troy Hendricks, Hendricks, Hendricks in was
right there as well.
So it wasn't getting in
but he got greedy. Couldn't just take the three
he wanted to try and make the play to. So to me
that's all on Mahomes. Now
again, I don't. If it carries into the second half, you got
a new ball game. You got another play. You got a lot of plays,
you got to go.
I just think Cincinnati made great adjustments
and they really took the life out of that
Kansas City offense.
Yeah, and let's focus on the adjustments because look, Mike.
This is the second time
in less than a month
that the Bengals defense held the Chiefs 23 points in
the second half of a game.
Three points. That's six total points in 120
or no. 60 Minutes of football would have found a better. If
it was 120. My math sucks. It always does 60 Minutes of
football,
six total points
with one of the best offenses. We've seen in years.
Trying to score far more than that. And I was poking around
last night
with some people who are at the game trying to figure out
whether there was any talk, any chatter any discussion of Pat
Mahomes, maybe being dinged. And we didn't know about it or
injured and we didn't know about it
and the halftime adjustments.
As I understand it were planned
that this was part of the rocky switching back to Southpaw at
the right moment that they had planned to change everything up
in the second half. Now, you know, they
they maybe should have implemented it earlier
then they did once they were down 2:39. But if this was a,
were deliberately going to flip it around and change it around,
and adjust everything, and confuse them in the second
half, kudos to them
because it worked
and and, and that's one of the reasons why, you know, that
first drive it just they It to sputtered and it just kept
sputtering
and they could not get it going. And
I think when they go back and look at the film, they'll
realize that they were led to believe the Bengals were
playing them one way the Bangles changed and they didn't
have enough time or they didn't have the ability to make
the adjustment
during the 30 minutes plus
the drive of over time that they had.
Yeah. Listen, and while most adjustments are made at halftime.
Listen, every time, one side of the ball, goes to the sideline.
They talk about things they're constantly talking. King and
get things done right away. Just in case it's a turnover
and they have to get back on the field.
So, it's talked about, so they saw what they were doing.
I mean, and they just didn't adjust well to it. I mean,
to think of of dropping eight, right, so you're putting eight
in coverage, you're rushing three. So they did that about
35% of the times on drop backs for Mahomes, right?
And when they did that,
I mean it was it was horrible. What he did,
his stats dropping eight back, he was 13 for 59 yards and
an interception and he got sacked twice
on a three-man rush.
So Cincinnati completely took a to him on 35% of his drop facts
13 passes and they didn't have an answer for it. One of
the ways is maybe you try and run the ball a little more because
there's there's a lot of guys back. So if there's guys back
you got to bring them up somehow some way.
So do you run the ball a little more and there's been
the thought that there's enough running in this offense when
need be B-but,
I mean this is so much kudos to Cincinnati for the adjustment
and then executing the adjustment and on the other
side. You just have to say listen.
They adjusted. What did you do to adjust it at it. It really
is a chess match out there of when the the offense comes off
and says man, you know, you see what's going on upstairs. They
send down the, we got
these tablets, we get to see everything. You see a door back
there, Russian three, you know, this isn't Reinventing
the wheel, you know, there's got to be some what of an answer that
you
Have to try for that
and I'm sure they did. I'm sure Andy and Eric be enemy. You
should sit there going. Oh my God, we've never seen this
before. What the hell do we do? They seen it. So I'm sure they
try to make adjustments to it.
That's why I say
the credit goes to Cincinnati. Not only did you adjust. But
man, you executed incredibly well.