The Cincinnati Bengals AFC Championship loss to the Kansas City Chiefs was a bit of a shock. The Bengals were one of the hottest teams in the league, winning their last 10 games in a row. Plus, Patrick Mahomes was hurt, Joe Burrow was 3-0 in his first three Bengals-Chiefs games, and the team decimated the Super Bowl favorite Buffalo Bills just a week ago. And if none of that convinced you the Bengals were going to win, all you had to do is ask them (or the Mayor of Cincinnati), and they would tell you the team was going to win at “Burrowhead.” Despite all that, the Bengals lost 23-20 to the Chiefs. After that L knocked Cincinnati out of the playoffs, there is plenty of blame to go around, from Burrow at the top all the way down to Eli Apple.
Joe Burrow
The quarterback gets an outsized amount of credit when a football team wins, which means they also have to take a good share of the blame when a team loses. That’s why Joe Burrow lands on this list.
Burrow had some moments of brilliance in the Bengals AFC Championship game, not the least of which was a 35-yard pass in double coverage to Ja’Marr Chase on 4th-and-6 to set up the touchdown that tied the game at 20. He also made some incredibly timely runs throughout the game and executed a near-flawless 2-minute drill at the end of the first half.
However, the stats weren’t great. Burrow was 26-of-41 for 270 yards with a touchdown, two interceptions, and five sacks. That last stat mostly isn’t his fault. It was the product of a makeshift offensive line. That said, Burrow knew Chris Jones and the Chiefs were coming hard and could have gotten rid of the ball quicker at times.
The fact is, to win a Super Bowl, most teams need their quarterback to play like Superman, and while Joe Burrow usually does, he just got out-superhero-ed by Mahomes in the AFC Championship game.
Burrow and the Bengals will likely be back to this point soon, but this one had to hurt. The AFC is loading up for an unprecedented group playing QB in the conference next season with Mahomes, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, and Trevor Lawrence already in place, Lamar Jackson possibly remaining in place, and maybe even Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers coming over.
Getting this close to the Big Game and not making it hurts, especially because you never know when you’ll be back, and Joe Burrow has to be kicking himself for not playing a little better in the Bengals-Chiefs game on Sunday.
Joseph Ossai
Joseph Ossai played an excellent game for 59 minutes and about 52 seconds on Sunday. Then, with eight ticks left, he made the bonehead play of the game that sent the Chiefs to the Super Bowl.
In the Bengals’ AFC Championship game, Ossai had five tackles, one tackle for a loss, a pass defended, and two quarterback hits. He was huge in stifling the Chiefs' running game and putting pressure on Mahomes all night.
In the end, Ossai just let his concentration lapse for a split-second in the Bengals-Chiefs game, and it was on the play that ultimately won it for Kansas City.
And in a game where the officiating was terrible and call after call seemed to go against Cincinnati, this simply wasn’t one of those. As a Bengals fan, you can argue about the defensive holding calls, decry the pass interferences, and rail against phantom do-over on 3rd-down. And that’s all fair.
But a defender shoving a quarterback, arms extended, two steps out of bounds is getting called every single time in the NFL, like it or not.
Eli Apple and Mike Hilton
The two players to blame for the Bengals AFC Championship loss are Eli Apple and Mike Hilton, and it has nothing to do with how they played in this Benagls-Chiefs game (although Apple didn’t play well).
It comes down to what they did in the Bengals-Bills game a week prior.
Eli Apple preened and strutted and danced on the sideline, talked trash into any camera that would point at him, and then continued the smack-talk on social media, even taking on injured Bills player Damar Hamlin.
And while that’s all bad, what Mike Hilton did was ultimately worse.
NFL Films cameras caught him saying to his teammates that they were on to “Burrowhead” after the Divisional Rounds win, and that phrase will go down in history as a horrible idea that did nothing but anger the opposition and ensure sports karma was on the other side of Benagls-Chiefs.
Defensive backs are cocky and full of bravado by nature. They have to be to do what they do in a league where all the rules are designed to make their jobs near-impossible. But Eli Apple and Mike Hilton went too far, and it fired up the Chiefs, inspiring them to play their best.
If you don’t believe that, just count how many times Travis Kelce said “Burrowhead” after the game.
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