The Kansas City Chiefs return to the AFC Championship Game. Despite a tough performance from Texans quarterback CJ Stroud, the Chiefs posted a 23-14 victory in the AFC Divisional Round thanks to future Hall of Fame tight end Travis Kelce, who caught seven passes for 117 yards and a touchdown.
Kelce’s biggest play was an 11-yard touchdown run that extended Kansas City’s lead to eight points less than four minutes into the fourth quarter. He now has nine career playoff games with more than 100 receiving yards, breaking the record previously held by Jerry Rice, who is widely considered the greatest receiver in NFL history.
Kansas City started the game with a 63-yard punt return by Nikko Remigio that turned into a 78-yard recovery following a Houston penalty. The two teams then traded field goals before Kareem Hunt scored the game’s first touchdown with just under five minutes remaining in the half. The score was set up by a 49-yard catch and run by Kelce.
Stroud, despite injuring his left knee early in the first quarter, consistently made plays with his arm and feet while leading Houston on back-to-back drives. The second drive was a 15-play, 82-yard march early in the second half that was punctuated by a Joe Mixon touchdown run. But Houston missed the PAT that would have tied the score, and the Chiefs offense responded with a scoring drive of its own that ended with a Kelce touchdown. Kansas City’s defense and special teams then made big stops to preserve the victory.
Here’s a closer look at how the Chiefs advanced to their seventh straight AFC title game.
Why the Chiefs won
Kansas City received a vintage performance from Kelce, who had just one 100-yard receiving game during the regular season. Kelce was complemented in the passing game by rookie Xavier Worthy, who caught five of six targets for 45 yards in his playoff debut. Mahomes was 12 of 14 for 162 yards and a touchdown when throwing to Kelce or Worthy and was just 4 of 11 for 15 yards on attempts to anyone else.
Kansas City’s offense improved in the red zone in the second half after being just 1 of 3 in the first half. The Chiefs scored touchdowns on both of their drives inside the Texans 20-yard line in the second half.
Defensively, Kansas City got the timely sack of Stroud, who was picked off eight times. George Karlaftis had three sacks of Stroud, including one on fourth down, with the Chiefs protecting an eight-point lead with just under 10 minutes to play.
Kansas City also made two big plays on special teams: Remigio’s big putback to start the game and Justin Reid’s blocked field goal attempt with 1:52 left and the Chiefs leading by 11 points.
Why the Texans lost
Houston fought back, but too many self-inflicted wounds kept it from reaching its first conference title game. Specifically, the Texans’ special teams imploded, with Ka’imi Fairbairn missing two field goals.
Penalties haunted Houston all day. The Texans were flagged eight times for 82 yards, while Kansas City was penalized four times for 29 yards. Some of the flags on the Texans were legitimate, while several penalties were iffy at best.
Houston’s defense was solid for most of the game, but struggled in the red zone in the second half and allowed too many big plays from Kelce.
Offensively, the Texans offensive line struggled to protect Stroud, but other than that, it was an inspired effort from this unit. For long stretches, the Texans offense dictated the momentum of the game while keeping Mahomes and Co. on the sidelines. They were 10 of 17 on third down (compared to 4 of 11 for the Chiefs) while consistently getting completions from Stroud on possession downs. Stroud had great success passing the ball to Nico Collins, Dalton Schultz and Xavier Hutchinson, who caught a total of 13 passes for 196 yards. Houston’s passing game was complemented by Mixon and a ground game that outscored the Chiefs 149-50.
If the Texans had a full complement of receivers, it’s conceivable to think they would have won this game.
Turn/play of the game
After Houston nearly tied the score, the Chiefs regained control of the game on their next drive when Mahomes hit Kelce for a touchdown as he fell to the ground.
Quotable
As we mentioned earlier, there were some suspicious calls Saturday night, the majority of them aimed at the Texans. One of them was bad enough to elicit this response from Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who was on the call with ESPN.
“We knew going into this game, it was us against everyone,” Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said, referring to the referees. “When I say everyone, I mean everyone. The opponents, the doubt. We had to face everyone again today. Coming into this match knowing what we were up against, we can’t make the mistakes we made. We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes.
What’s next
Kansas City will host the winner of tomorrow night’s divisional round playoff game in Buffalo between the Ravens and Bills. The Chiefs beat the Ravens in Week 1, but lost their regular season matchup to the Bills.
For a second straight year, Houston won the AFC South division title and a wild-card round playoff game. They’re surely hoping to have better protection, special teams play and a healthier receiving corps if they’re in the same spot next year.