Chiefs host Bengals, 49ers at Rams for spots in Super Bowl
A six-point victory seemed like a rout this wild weekend.
Even if it was in overtime. Kansas City's hold-your-breath 42-36 win over Buffalo capped a divisional round in which the other three games were decided on finalplay field goals giving the visitors wins. The Chiefs and Bills scored three touchdowns and a lastsecond field goal in the final two minutes Sunday night before twotime defending AFC champion Kansas City won on Travis Kelce's 8-yard TD catch on the first series of the extra period.
That set up a Bengals-Chiefs matchup for the AFC crown next Sunday afternoon at Arrowhead Stadium. Kansas City will host that game for the fourth straight year as it seeks a third consecutive Super Bowl berth. The Bengals were last in the big game in 1989.
The Rams made it an all-NFC West conference championship game with San Francisco by edging defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay 30-27 earlier Sunday. The 49ers lost to the Chiefs two years ago, one year after the Rams fell to the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
Patrick Mahomes found 13 seconds enough time to engineer a drive to Harrison Butker's 49-yard field goal as regulation ended in Kansas City. The Chiefs won the coin toss, marched downfield against an exhausted Buffalo defense, and found Kelce in the corner of the end zone.
"We're going to play that team a lot of times, and games like this," Mahomes said of the Bills. "With that quarterback, with that coaching staff and the players they have, it's going to be a lot of battles. I'm glad we got this one. We're going to try to keep it rolling, we've got a good team coming in next week, but we get to be at Arrowhead for the AFC championship."
Their 6-point margin on a classic weekend NFL fans will long remember was twice that of each of the other three divisional-round contests.
Rookie Evan McPherson won it 19-16 at Tennessee with a 52-yard field goal for Cincinnati, which emerged from the postseason desert last week by winning for the first time since 1991 — yes, '91 — with a 26-19 home victory against Las Vegas.