The Daily Caller logo
Editorial

Chiefs Outlast Jaguars In Divisional Round To Advance To Fifth Straight AFC Championship Game

AFC Divisional Playoffs - Jacksonville Jaguars v Kansas City Chiefs

(Photo by Jason Hanna/Getty Images)

Seth Roy Contributor
Font Size:

The Kansas City Chiefs are heading back to the AFC Championship game.

Kansas City’s 27-20 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars places them in their fifth consecutive AFC title game. They’ll either play against the Buffalo Bills or the Cincinnati Bengals in the championship game depending on the outcome of their Sunday matchup at Orchard Park.

The Chiefs’ victory did not come easily. They dealt with serious adversity early in the game when their star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, had his right ankle rolled while being tackled in the pocket.

His injury occurred one series after throwing an 8-yard touchdown pass to Travis Kelce on Kansas City’s opening drive.  

Mahomes would stay in the game to finish off Kansas City’s drive, but would  head into the locker room on the next series because of the injury. 

Before heading into the locker room, the limping superstar QB was seen on the sidelines pleading with Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid and a team trainer to keep him in the game. Mahomes was seen saying  “I’m good” and being adamant about not missing any action. His plea to remain in the game was apparently overturned as he was sidelined for veteran quarterback, Chad Henne.

In relief of Mahomes, Henne would lead the Chiefs on an incredible 98-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter, which ended with a one-yard touchdown reception to Kelce, for his second score of the game. Henne’s touchdown throw to the Chiefs’ star tight end would put Kansas City further ahead, 17-7.

Trevor Lawrence would lead the Jaguars on a 52-yard drive directly after the Kansas City touchdown to set up kicker Riley Patterson for a successful 41-yard field goal to head into halftime with the Chiefs ahead 17-10. 

Mahomes would triumphantly return on the opening drive of the second half and would later lead the Chiefs to the only points of the third quarter. Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker capped off a 5-play, 29-yard drive, with a 50-yard field goal to expand Kansas City’s lead to 20-10 heading into the final 15 minutes of the game. 

(RELATED: Legendary Former NFL Coach Tony Dungy Attacked For Attending March For Life)

The Jaguars would not go away easily, scoring on a 75-yard drive on their first series of the 4th quarter when running back Travis Etienne Jr. scored on a four-yard run.

In response, the hobbled Mahomes would lead the Chiefs on a 75-yard drive of their own, capping it off with a six-yard touchdown pass to Marquez Valdes-Scantling to go back up by ten.

After the Chiefs score, the Jaguars would begin to troop back down the field. Their promising drive ended in a Jamal Agnew fumble inside the 5-yard line. Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton would recover the football to all but seal the deal for the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Jaguars would kick a field goal with under a minute left to make the score 27-20, but would fail to recover their onside kick attempt. This set Mahomes and the Chiefs offense up for one kneel down to run the clock out and capture the win.

It was an all-around solid team win for the Chiefs. They were faced with adversity early on in the ballgame but powered through to be victorious.

If the Chiefs play as well as they did on Saturday during the AFC title game, they could very well make their way back to the Super Bowl again. That said, the road to the big game only gets tougher from here.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters ✔ ✔ ✔
Daily Caller Shows ✔ ✔ ✔
Ad Free Experience ✔ ✔ ✔
Exclusive Articles ✔ ✔ ✔
Custom Newsletters ✔ ✔ ✔
Editor Daily Rundown ✔ ✔ ✔
Behind The Scenes Coverage ✔ ✔
Award Winning Documentaries ✔ ✔
Patriot War Room ✔ ✔
Patriot Live Chat ✔ ✔
Exclusive Events ✔
Gold Membership Card ✔
Tucker Mug ✔

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel