Patrick Mahomes learned a valuable lesson in the second half of the AFC Championship Game loss to the Bengals.
A few months ago, The Kansas City Chiefs seemed to be well on their way to a third straight Super Bowl berth when it grabbed an 18-point first-half lead over the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game. However, a second-half offensive meltdown instead saddled Kansas City with the dubious honor of blowing the biggest lead in AFC Championship Game history.
Mahomes admitted to Kevin Clark of The Ringer that he regrets playing “not to lose” in the latter half of the AFC Championship Game.
“The second half of that game: I don’t want to say we relaxed, but I mean when you lead like you did, you want to make sure you win the game, but you don’t want to play like you’re playing not to lose,” Mahomes said.
“And I feel like that’s what we did. As a team, we were playing not to lose, we were playing just to get to the Super Bowl. If you look, they didn’t do much different from the first half to the second half. We just didn’t execute at a high enough level. They were playing the same coverages and we weren’t executing. Then momentum gets in the other team’s favor and when you’re playing a good football team, bad stuff happens.”
The Chiefs lost and the Bengals went on to the Super Bowl, ultimately losing to the Los Angeles Rams.
Now, the Chiefs will have to try for a Super Bowl appearance without the services of Tyreek Hill after he was traded this offseason.
When you have Mahomes for a QB, anything is possible.
