Chiefs Land Punches Against Ravens to Take AFC Championship Once Again
Back in 2019, at the end of a long table, cornered at a Kansas City hotel restaurant awaiting the Chiefs game, I watched a bartender flick on the Baltimore Ravens-Tennessee Titans wild-card matchup and announce, to no one in particular, that Baltimore was going to lose because “they just hadn’t been punched in the mouth yet.”
This seemed like a patently ridiculous observation (so much so that I’m sure I tweeted it). At the time, Baltimore was 14–2. The Ravens had the best offense in the NFL and the third-best defense. Lamar Jackson was en route to an MVP season. The Ravens were scoring on more than half of their drives, a stunning 3% better than the next-best Chiefs.
And, yet, in one of the great moments in uninformed, out-loud pondering history, the bartender was right (we all deserve to feel that way once in our lives). The Ravens lost. An exhausted Jackson was forced into a Jerome Bettis–like 20 carries. The quarterback was sacked four times and dropped back 36 total times. The Titans won by 16 points, shutting the Ravens out in two of the four quarters.
Flowers had 115 of Baltimore’s 255 passing yards.
Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports
It was hard not to think of that person again after Sunday’s AFC title game. I wonder if there was someone backing a bar somewhere, brazen enough to announce the Ravens were again going to get shoved around in the playoffs after completing a dominant regular season, despite having no evidence to back it up. (I did check to see if someone tweeted it, and I hope that guy is still calling NFL games against his backdrop of premium spirits.) The 17–10 Chiefs victory was closer than it felt, even though Zay Flowers had a touchdown punched out of his hands that would have dramatically changed the tenor of this game.
From the pregame scuffling when Travis Kelce displaced Ravens kicker Justin Tucker’s helmet to make way for Patrick Mahomes, to the I’m-unholstering-my-pistol motion Kelce was making after certain contested catches, it felt like there was a clear directive from up top to see if Baltimore would recoil a little from a whiff of the attitude they so readily project.
There were enough examples—Rashee Rice cracking down in the blocking game, Kelce faking a double throw before bulling over Marcus Williams—to tell a story. Often, we can be smart enough to wrap the result in a schematic advantage or a matchup. But it’s hard to ignore the value of walking into someone else’s house acting like the Hells Angels and seeing what happens. Sometimes a game is as simple as a parent in the stands of a high school football game makes it seem.
It’s important to back up for one moment. As we mentioned before, Flowers lost a ball in the end zone. Isaiah Likely was turned around Fred Astaire–style and then tackled by defensive back Chamarri Conner on a critical third-down play that could have altered the complexion of the final few minutes. The Ravens were without answers for a lot of Steve Spagnuolo’s Cover Zero blitzes, lacking that screen pass or quick route that could force the Chiefs to back up and change the way they were playing. Todd Monken’s receivers also struggled to gain separation on plays where they weren’t being impeded.
Also true: Baltimore’s frustration throughout the game was evident. There were a lot of neck tackles and post-whistle shoves. Jackson, after being wrapped up for one of his four sacks, had to visibly restrain himself from whipping the ball at the turf. After a costly end zone interception, he spiked his helmet on the ground.
Because of that, it’s worth pointing out the brazenness of the game plan from Andy Reid and Spagnulo. Sure, Kansas City’s defense has been excellent and suffocating all season. Over the final 10 weeks of the season, the Chiefs were sixth in the NFL in defensive expected points added per dropback. And while the rushing defense was not as good, Kansas City was confident enough in a plan that forced it to tackle exceptionally well, keep one of the more elusive players in football from escaping the pocket and match calls with one of the best situational blitzing teams in the NFL.
The Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl because the team was able to land more punches, which nobody expected. The Ravens, meanwhile, have to return home to wrestle once again with this complicated notion of projected identity vs. reality. You know, the kind of stuff we thought only random people in bars were talking about.
