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NFL picks: Will Payments finish Chiefs’ three-peat bid? Commanders or Eagles to rep NFC in Tremendous Bowl? | NFL.com
Why Gennaro picked the Payments: As a result of I’m insane. A minimum of in response to a trite citation typically misattributed to Albert Einstein: The definition of madness is doing the identical factor over and over and anticipating totally different outcomes. Kansas Metropolis simply retains doing the identical factor over and over, and right here I’m anticipating a distinct end result.
Taking part in of their seventh consecutive AFC Championship Sport, the Chiefs are eyeing a fifth Tremendous Bowl look in six seasons. Over the previous 13 months, Kansas Metropolis’s starters have misplaced one recreation. In fact, that lone setback got here towards these Payments. The Chiefs’ mid-November defeat at Buffalo wasn’t shocking, both, contemplating the Payments had been favored within the recreation. To not point out, the victory improved Josh Allen’s regular-season document towards Patrick Mahomes to 4-1. But it surely’s a distinct story within the playoffs, the place Mahomes boasts an ideal 3-0 mark within the QB duel. So, what makes me consider Allen will lastly slay his Chief tormentor within the postseason? Nicely, talking of madness …
I feel the Payments can out-Chief the Chiefs.
Largest concern for last 4 playoff groups: Chiefs slicing it too shut? How wholesome is Eagles’ Jalen Hurts? | CBS Sports activities
Kansas Metropolis Chiefs
Are they slicing it too shut?
On one hand, the Chiefs are unmatched in terms of ending video games, excelling at each situational technique and execution. And but it stands to cause that the extra you play with hearth, the extra possible you might be to get burned. This isn’t 2019, when Mahomes was slinging the rock deep each different play, lifting Andy Reid’s assault to high-scoring victories. Eleven of the Chiefs’ 16 wins that Mahomes began this season have been one-score choices, with Steve Spagnuolo’s protection once more working the present.
How the NFL’s Ultimate 4 Groups Clarify the 2024 Season | The Ringer
The Chiefs taught us … not a rattling factor.
I don’t imply to dismiss what Kansas Metropolis has completed this season. The 2-time defending champs tied for the league’s finest document at 15-2, received the AFC West for the ninth straight yr, and are actually simply two wins away from doing one thing no different group has been capable of accomplish within the Tremendous Bowl period: win three titles back-to-back-to-back. The 2024 Chiefs might go down as one of the traditionally important groups ever, they usually deserve their correct respect. However that doesn’t imply this model of Kansas Metropolis taught us something that we hadn’t already realized from the previous variations of the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, Steve Spagnuolo, late-game satan magic, and some favorable calls from the referees can cowl up for lots of weaknesses. That’s all I obtained from this group, however we already knew that.
This yr’s Chiefs really feel like an extension of final yr’s Tremendous Bowl–successful squad. The offense is barely improved however nonetheless extremely flawed and missing high-end receiving expertise. The protection has regressed to league common however nonetheless has Spagnuolo placing collectively its recreation plans, which made the distinction final postseason. The system for achievement has remained largely the identical, too: maintain the sport shut sufficient by means of the primary three quarters and await Mahomes to make one or two performs—or for the opposing group to make one or two errors—that swing the sport in Kansas Metropolis’s favor. And the Chiefs repeated that course of seemingly each week of the common season.
Bleacher Report’s Skilled AFC and NFC Championship NFL Picks | Bleacher Report
Michelino: It felt like we had been at all times destined to reach proper again right here with these two, now for the fourth time of their current playoff historical past with Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.
The Payments and Allen are on a particular run, each in document and efficiency ATS. But it surely’s honest to query if they’ve what it takes to dethrone the Chiefs of their constructing. Contemplating that Buffalo is up towards Mahomes, a superior protection and getting little additional assist excessive, it’s exhausting to see the Payments pulling this upset off. I’ll be rooting for Josh Allen, however my cash is on historical past repeating itself with Andy and Mahomes.
Chiefs 24, Payments 20
Are Kansas Metropolis Chiefs the NFL’s new villain in Tremendous Bowl push? | USA Right now
In any occasion, the negativity appears so actual. It’s to the purpose that a number of individuals I talked to this week in random conversations supplied their unsolicited want to see this Chiefs fall this weekend. I’m guessing they simply wished to place it within the universe.
Regardless, they’ll watch. No group within the NFL is a much bigger TV draw than the Chiefs, surpassing the Dallas Cowboys (which nonetheless ranks extremely regardless of a decades-long championship drought) within the scores recreation.
When the Chiefs suffered their first lack of the season at Buffalo in mid-November, the matchup drew a mean of 31.2 million viewers – greater than the determine for any NFL regular-season recreation since 2007, exterior of Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve video games. And the Christmas blowout at Pittsburgh, with a mean of 24.1 million tuning in on Netflix, was one of many most-streamed NFL video games but.
So, sorry, Jerry, whereas the Chiefs have grow to be “America’s Workforce” in that also they are the group that (many in) America like to hate.
Hollywood Brown, Bobby Wagner headline X-factors for AFC, NFC title video games | FOX Sports activities
Kansas Metropolis Chiefs
WR Hollywood Brown
Brown missed many of the season with a shoulder damage suffered throughout preseason play. Now that he’s again, pairing Brown with rookie speedster Xavier Worthy permits the Chiefs to play how they meant when this group was put collectively — two vertical threats to stretch the sector for intermediate targets Travis Kelce and DeAndre Hopkins.
Brown totaled 9 receptions for 91 yards on 15 targets throughout the common season. Chiefs coach Andy Reid is a grasp at making probably the most out of function gamers on the receiver place, so don’t be shocked if Brown makes a giant play towards the Payments.
2025 NFL Mock Draft: Raiders commerce up for Shedeur Sanders, Lions get edge associate for Aidan Hutchinson | CBS Sports activities
Spherical 1 – Choose 32
Matthew Golden WR
Texas • Jr • 6’0” / 195 lbs
Again-to-back first-round receivers for the Chiefs, as they decide up a speedster with good polish in Matthew Golden.
Across the NFL
Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Lamar Jackson amongst AP NFL MVP finalists | ESPN
Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Joe Burrow, Jared Goff and Lamar Jackson are finalists for The Related Press 2024 NFL Most Helpful Participant award.
Barkley, Burrow and Jackson are also finalists for Offensive Participant of the 12 months and Burrow is within the working for Comeback Participant of the 12 months.
The winners will probably be introduced at NFL Honors on Feb. 6. A nationwide panel of fifty media members who frequently cowl the league accomplished voting earlier than the playoffs started.
School soccer championship scores fall by 12 % | NBC Sports activities
That’s one potential rationalization for the downward pattern in NFL playoffs and the dip within the viewers of the school soccer nationwide championship.
By way of Austin Karp of Sports activities Enterprise Journal, Monday night time’s Ohio State-Notre Dame recreation dropped by 12 % over final yr’s recreation between Michigan and Washington.
The entire viewers for the 2024 title recreation was 22.1 million, down from 25 million for the 2023 championship.
The expanded school championship resulted in 5 straight days of postseason motion from Thursday, January 9 to Monday, January 13. The entire viewers for the NFL’s Wild Card spherical dropped by 9.5 %.
In case you missed it on Arrowhead Prid
Chiefs’ Kareem Hunt, Isiah Pacheco on AFC Championship, chemistry
Hunt, who scored a landing in final week’s playoff recreation towards the Houston Texans, mirrored on the second’s significance.
“It was a dream come true, getting to attain a landing in a big-time playoff recreation,” he recalled. “I’ll be capable to dwell with that eternally.”
In his second stint with the group, Hunt has grow to be a vital weapon for the Chiefs in high-pressure moments, notably in short-yardage conditions.
“I need to maintain the drive alive, and you bought to have the ability to get these robust yards in that scenario,” Hunt shared of his strategy, “and me having the ability to simply discover a manner and squeeze by means of someplace or, you understand, carry a man for a number of yards, and [it’s] simply all about will.”
Head coach Andy Reid has excessive reward for Hunt’s effectiveness in important short-yardage conditions, attributing it to each his physicality and willpower.
“He’s an excellent participant, [and] I don’t need to simply slender him all the way down to the short-yardage half,” Reid defined. “I feel he does a heck of a job with it; he’s obtained a knack for that.”
Reid referred to Hunt as “a giant child” and “sturdy” whereas commending the eight-year veteran’s willingness to tackle the short-yardage recreation.
