Getty Image
- Patrick Mahomes will not appear in the Super Bowl for the first time since 2019.
- Mahomes and the Chiefs blew a 21-3 against the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game.
- To his credit, Mahomes shouldered the blame for the loss: “I put that on myself.”
When the Kansas City Chiefs were cruising to a 21-3 lead in the first half of Sunday’s AFC Championship game, many football fans — given the Chiefs’ combination of talent and experience — figured that the bout was over and that K.C. was punching their ticket to their third straight Super Bowl.
That all changed at the end of the first half, though, as the Chiefs — who were leading 21-10 at the time — were unable to score points on their final drive of the half, with the Bengals’ goal-line stand as time ran out in the second quarter effectively flipping the momentum has the game went into halftime. From there, it was all Joe Burrow and the Bengals, as the AFC’s #4 seed outscored the Chiefs 17-3 in the second half and overtime to earn their berth to Super Bowl LVI.
Following the loss, Patrick Mahomes — who completed 26 of 39 passes for 275 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions in the game — shouldered the blame for the result, surmising that not being able to see out a 21-3 lead is on him:
“They just had a spy on me, for the most part, and I’ve usually done a good job getting around that guy, but they had a good game plan,” Mahomes told reporters after the game.
“They were doing a lot of similar stuff in the first half, we were just executing at a higher level. They stayed with it. But I mean, I gotta be better. I mean when you’re up 21-3 at one point in the game, you can’t lose it, and I put that on myself.”
Thanks to their victory over the two-time defending AFC Champion Chiefs, Joe Burrow and the upstart Cincinnati Bengals will take on Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI on Sunday, February 13.