Cincinnati Bengals @ Kansas City Chiefs
The Cincinnati Bengals were able to have quite the performance. Picking up a road win in the playoffs for the first time in forever. They were going up against the number one seeded Tennessee Titans and emerged victorious with a last second field goal. Joe Burrow and company were able to keep the game pretty close throughout the night, but the offensive line was definitely proving to be a problem for them. Luckily, they had forced multiple turnovers and wound up grabbing an interception in the final minutes to milk the clock and put the game away.
Burrow has just been stellar the last five weeks now. The swagger and confidence that he has when throwing the football is clearly just oozing onto the rest of the roster. Ja’Marr Chase is also phenomenal, yet again breaking the 100-yard receiving mark with Tee Higgins coming up just behind him. Even Joe Mixon got himself some solid production when his name was called, though he didn’t get as many touches as he should have. The only real issue that we saw from the Bengals offense was their offensive line, which allowed nine sacks throughout the game. Defensively, they were really good. They stopped Derrick Henry consistently and were all over the Titans receivers, outside of a few big plays from AJ Brown.
Flipping over to the Kansas City Chiefs, we are running out of great things to say about them. Patrick Mahomes and this offense were unstoppable the whole game. They had scored a touchdown with a minute left in the game, then got the ball down by three points with 13 seconds remaining. Somehow, they found a way to get into field goal range and knock it through. They won the coin toss and easily marched down the field and scored a walk off touchdown.
Defensively, I think we need to worry about this group because they weren’t able to stop Josh Allen whatsoever. Each of these teams deserve to advance onto the Super Bowl, and we saw the Bengals win this matchup late in the season. Almost everybody is going to take the Chiefs here, but I really like the underdog story with the Bengals, I’ll roll with them.
San Francisco 49ers @ Los Angeles Rams
The San Francisco 49ers shocked the world when they went in and upset the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau Field during the Divisional Round. Nobody was ever expecting to see Aaron Rodgers and this squad get knocked out in their first playoff game of the season, not after they have been consistently dominant all year long. San Francisco just went in there and beat them on special teams.
Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t have a great day on the stat sheet, but his weapons had dropped a lot of big passes early on in the game. George Kittle with the most critical one, with his dropped pass likely going to the house for a 50-yard touchdown. Deebo Samuel got a little banged up as well but proved to still be a factor in the run and pass game. Elijah Mitchell is an excellent running back in his rookie season and we can’t talk enough about how great their offensive line is. Plus, their defense was amazing.
It’s not often you can limit the Packers offense to three points in three quarters, yet they did just that after allowing an early touchdown on the first drive of the game. This team looks really good and is upsetting people week after week now.
The Los Angeles Rams have to be careful here. They were up by 24 points against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers late in their last game, then proceeded to fumble four different times and help Tom Brady tie the game up with a minute left in regulation. Luckily, they forgot how to cover Cooper Kupp and he went on to get them in field goal position to win the game.
The Rams have lost six straight games to the 49ers now, and with the way they played last week they should be concerned. I am going to take the 49ers in this game, they have been really good lately and they seem to have the Rams number.
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