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The Cincinnati Bengals and the Kansas City Chiefs will face off this Sunday in the 2022 AFC Championship Game. We should hope that this weekend’s game is as exciting as what occurred when these teams matched up in Cincy in Week 17 of the regular season.
Bengals vs. Chiefs: 2021 regular-season game
Thanks in large part to the unstoppable connection between Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, the Bengals prevailed over Kansas City, 34-31.
The Chiefs opened as a 4.5-point favorite and it looked as if they would make this a laugher early on as they got out to a quick 14-0 lead behind a couple of Patrick Mahomes passing touchdowns. But the Bengals, who faced a 14-point deficit at three different times, stayed alive thanks to Chase’s historic performance. He caught 11 passes for 266 yards, the most receiving yards by a rookie ever in an NFL game. Chase also accounted for three of Burrow’s four touchdowns. Two of Chase’s scores came from at least 60 yards away. Burrow completed 30 of 39 passes for 446 yards. His five-yard touchdown to Tyler Boyd with 11:44 remaining in the fourth quarter gave the Bengals their first lead of the day at 31-28.
Mahomes put his team in a position to tie the game with a Harrison Butker field goal at the 6:01 mark, but those were the only points KC mustered in the second half. A short field goal from Evan McPherson at the buzzer notched a 34-31 victory as well as an AFC North title for the Bengals. Mahomes threw for 259 yards and those early TDs to Demarcus Robinson and Travis Kelce. Running back Darrel Williams ran for 88 yards and two TDs on 14 carries. Tyreek Hill saw a team-high 10 targets, but he came away with only 40 yards on six catches.
Overall team records, meeting history
The Bengals have won five of the previous six meetings in this series and hold a 16-14 edge all time. However, these squads have met only twice since Mahomes was installed as the Chiefs’ starting QB. In that first matchup, coming in October 2018, Kansas City blew out Cincinnati, 45-10, as Mahomes threw for 358 yards and four scores at home.