The Kansas City Chiefs are heading back to the AFC Championship game. Despite a gritty performance from Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, the Chiefs recorded a 23-14 win in the AFC divisional round on the strength of 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 grab that extended Kansas City’s lead to eight points less than four minutes into the fourth quarter. He now has nine career postseason games with over 100 receiving yards, breaking the record previously held by Jerry Rice, who is widely regarded as 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 pickup following a Houston penalty. The two teams then traded short field goals before Kareem Hunt scored the game’s first touchdown with just under five minutes left until halftime. 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 both his arm and his feet while leading Houston on consecutive scoring drives. The second drive was a 15-play, 82-yard march at the start of 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 its own scoring drive that concluded with Kelce’s touchdown catch. Kansas City’s defense and special teams then came up with big stops to preserve the win.
Here’s a closer look at how the Chiefs advanced to their seventh consecutive 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 postseason 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 trips inside the Texans’ 20-yard line in the second half.
Defensively, Kansas City got timely sacks of Stroud, who was taken down eight times. George Karlaftis had three sacks of Stroud that included one on fourth down with the Chiefs protecting an eight-point lead with just under 10 minutes left.
Kansas City also made two big plays on special teams: Remigio’s big return to start the game and Justin Reid’s blocked field goal attempt with 1:52 left and the Chiefs ahead by 11 points.
Why the Texans lost
Houston put up a fight, but too many self-inflicted wounds prevented it from reaching its first conference title game. Specifically, the Texans’ special teams imploded, as Ka’imi Fairbairn missed 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 most of the game, but it struggled in the red zone in the second half and allowed too many big plays by Kelce.
Offensively, the Texans’ offensive line struggled to protect Stroud, but other than that, it was an inspired effort by this unit. For large stretches, the Texans offense dictated the game’s momentum while keeping Mahomes and Co. on the sideline. They were 10 of 17 on third down (compared to the Chiefs being 4 of 11) while consistently getting clutch completions from Stroud on possession downs. Stroud had a lot of success getting the ball to Nico Collins, Dalton Schultz and Xavier Hutchinson, who caught a combined 13 passes for 196 yards. Houston’s passing game was complemented by Mixon and a ground game that outrushed the Chiefs 149-50.
Had the Texans had their full complement of receivers, it’s fathomable to think that they would have won this game.
Turning point/play of the game
After Houston nearly tied the score, the Chiefs regained control of the game on their ensuing drive when Mahomes hit Kelce for a touchdown as he was falling to the ground.
Quotable
As we alluded to earlier, there were some suspect calls on Saturday night, with the majority of them coming against the Texans. One was bad enough to draw this response from Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who was on the call for ESPN.
“We knew going into this game, man, it was us versus everybody,” Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said afterward while alluding to the officiating. “When I say everybody, I mean everybody. The naysayers, the doubt. Everybody we had to go against again today. Going into this game 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 defeated the Ravens in Week 1 but lost their regular-season showdown against the Bills.
For a second straight year, Houston won the AFC South division title and a wild-card round playoff game. They surely hope to have better protection, special teams play and a healthier receiving corps if they are in this same spot next year.
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