They hold huge edge over Steelers, but Kansas City Chiefs must be at their best Sunday
Patrick Mahomes has bewildered the Pittsburgh Steelers, completing 46 of 58 passes for 584 yards and nine touchdowns in two games in which the Chiefs have scored 78 points — including in a 36-10 dissection on Dec. 26 at Arrowhead Stadium.
That last outing wasn’t as close as it sounded, either, with the Chiefs throttling it down after taking a 30-0 lead even with eight men out on the reserve/COVID-19 list and star receiver Tyreek Hill barely able to go after his return.
Meanwhile, Mahomes’ quarterback counterpart Ben Roethlisberger has faded from the daunting “Big Ben” presence of his heyday to a shadow of that in the twilight of his career … as reiterated by a lost fumble and an interception in that last meeting and his increasing lack of mobility.
Moreover, the two-time defending AFC Champion Chiefs are surging with nine wins in their last 10 games and have won five of their last six home playoff games (after winning just two at home in the rest of franchise history).
Add it all up, and it’s easy to understand why oddsmakers reckon the Chiefs are a 13-point favorite over a Steelers (9-7-1) team that eked into the postseason after entering last weekend with a 9 percent chance to make the playoffs.
So some might figure this is the closest thing to a first-round bye that the Chiefs could get … even if the Raiders seemed like even more fertile fodder since the Chiefs beat them 41-14 and 48-9 this season.
And, to be sure, that’s how it should play out if the Chiefs tackle and defend overall like they had most of the last 10 games. And if they don’t suddenly revert to their stunning turnover-prone ways of the early season.
And if they just bring the intensity that even coach Andy Reid seemed to suggest was absent during last week’s 28-24 win at Denver … if not in the loss at Cincinnati a week before.
“It’s a tough thing when you’ve clinched the AFC West and you’ve got to finish it off with two games,” Reid said Monday. “It’s a weird dynamic, to say the least, because you’ve busted your tail to get the first step and that’s the AFC West.
“So, now you’ve got to get back and retool some things, both sides of the ball and special teams, and clean some things up. We’ll work on that this week.”
They’ll need all of that juice no matter how much of an inherent advantage they might appear to hold.
Because this is your friendly reminder that every game takes on its own personality, sometimes with just a bounce or a call that dominoes, and that the playoffs are an unforgiving entity unto themselves … as Chiefs fans know only too well from two generations without a Super Bowl before the arrival of Mahomes.
Even if it was tempting to shrug it off it as coach-speak, Reid was absolutely right when he said this:
“The playoffs, it really doesn’t matter what you’ve done before when we played; it’s about now,” he said. “Everything is a little faster in the playoffs and more aggressive. It’s just the nature of this thing and how it works, so we’ve got to make sure we get ourselves right and go through that process.”
Through that process … not through the motions.
Especially against a proud franchise coached by the fierce Mike Tomlin and led by a quarterback with a 13-9 playoff record as he seeks to extend his career by at least another game.
Now, much has been made of what it took for the Steelers just to creep into the playoffs.
That twist included a Jacksonville team with the worst record in the NFL beating a Colts team many perceived as an emerging contender. And, of course, it featured a would-be tie that would have knocked out the Steelers but was averted on the last play of the crazy last game of the regular season when the Raiders beat the Chargers 35-32 in overtime on Sunday night.
But there’s a flip side to all that, too: The Steelers never would have made it in if not for their grit in winning three of four down the stretch, a run that included beating the top-seeded Titans 19-13 and beating the Ravens 16-13 in overtime on Sunday in Baltimore.
And while the Chiefs certainly were depleted against the Steelers the last time around, it bears mention that the Steelers weren’t entirely healthy, either. Most notably, ever-menacing defensive end T.J. Watt (22.5 sacks) played only 38 snaps as he contended with cracked ribs.
Also: Najee Harris is fourth in the NFL in rushing and ran for 93 yards against the Chiefs in December. If the Steelers don’t give up three turnovers to none for the Chiefs again, and if the Chiefs tackle as poorly as they did the last couple weeks, that kind of performance could be much more relevant this time around.
Let’s all remember, too, that most of the Chiefs’ recent postseason success has come after either a scare (Super Bowl LIV was their third straight rally from a double-digit deficit, and they beat the Browns last year 22-17). And that not so long ago (Jan. 15, 2017), the Steelers won a quirky game here without so much as scoring a touchdown.
None of which is to say that the Chiefs aren’t well-poised to win this game. They absolutely are.
But all of it is to say that no matter how oddsmakers see this, including the fact the Chiefs are the odds-on favorite to get back to the Super Bowl, this is nothing at all like a bye for the Chiefs — who’ll still need to be the best version of themselves to be relatively certain of advancing.
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "They hold huge edge over Steelers, but Kansas City Chiefs must be at their best Sunday."