Championship Weekend Recap

30 teams have fallen and now only two remain to battle it out for the Super Bowl. Kansas City and Tampa Bay both emerged victorious this past weekend to set up a highly anticipated Super Bowl. Green Bay and Buffalo came far this season, but alas it wasn’t enough. Both teams will hope that fortune favors them next season. Here’s a breakdown of how the games were won and lost.

Green Bay Packers 26 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31

Brady and the Buccaneers shocked the Green Bay faithful and denied Aaron Rodgers another shot at a Super Bowl. Probably the most impressive thing about this victory is the fact that at no point in this game were they behind. From the opening drive, Tampa was either ahead or briefly tied with the Packers. A controversial decision by the Packers to kick a field goal, instead of going for it on 4th down at the end might’ve been the difference between the two teams.

There were several reasons why the Packers lost this game. But the biggest reason would be the ending to the first half. With less than a minute left Rodgers threw an INT which gave the Bucs great field position. The Packer’s defense ended up making a stop or at least that’s what we thought. On 4th down Brady threw a back-breaking 39 yard TD with 1 second left before halftime. Those 7 points pretty much ended up being the difference between the two teams.

Aaron Rodgers will rue yet another missed opportunity to get back to the Super Bowl. The 4th quarter in particular will truly bother him in the upcoming months as there were numerous missed opportunities. The Packers defense forced 3 turnovers and only allowed 3 points in the 2nd half. They gave their offense a platform to turn the game and unfortunately for the Green Bay faithful, it didn’t happen. After the game Rodgers left the door open for a potential exit from Green Bay.

What more can we say about Tom Brady. The man is headed to his mind-boggling 10th Super Bowl and will be hoping for a 7th title. He was fantastic in the first half and ended it with a bang. But the second half was a different story as he was downright horrible. Luckily for him and Tampa they did just enough to stave off a late comeback. A lot of credit goes to the defense who stood firm when they were needed most.

The win also allowed Tampa Bay to do something that no other team has ever achieved before. This season’s Super Bowl will take place in the Buccaneers stadium. Meaning that for the first time ever a team will get to play a Super Bowl in its own stadium. It will be interesting to see what type of advantages the Buccaneers will enjoy over the next two weeks.

Kansas City Chiefs 38 Buffalo Bills 24

The Chiefs continue to sweep aside all who opposed them as they turned in their most impressive performance of the season. The win puts them a game away from becoming the 10th team in NFL history to win back to back championships. As for the Bills, it was a tremendous season, and make no mistake this team will be back. Josh Allen and Stefan Diggs have a special connection that should keep this team as the class of the AFC East.

The game started off on the wrong foot for the Chiefs as they quickly found themselves down 9-0. That was due to a fumble on a punt return that gave Buffalo the ball on the 5 yard line. Buffalo would score a touchdown on the very next play. That’s where the good times stopped for Buffalo as from then on Mahomes took over. The combo of Mahomes, Kelce, and Hill tore apart the Bills defense. Kelce and Hill combined for 290 receiving yards and 2 TDs, while Mahomes had 325 total passing yards.

Defensively the Chiefs gave Josh Allen all sorts of problems. While the Chiefs defense did end up forcing an INT they were unlucky not to have more. They did however sack Allen 4 times and kept their running game quiet. Kansas City held the combination of Singletary and Yeldon to only 32 yards. Most importantly they made stops whenever it looked like Buffalo might claw their way back into the game. Next up for this defense is trying to figure out how to slow down the legendary Brady.

The Bills had a dream start to this game, but like many teams before them, couldn’t stop the Chiefs from running riot. A 9-0 lead quickly turned into a 14-9 deficit and from that there was no coming back. It eventually ballooned into a 21-9 hole before Buffalo could respond. Bills fans will be annoyed with some of the decision-making as on several occasions the Bills chose to kick FGs instead of going for touchdowns. Against this KC team, you can’t settle for FGs and unfortunately for the Buffalo faithful, they found out the hard way.

The loss will sting for Buffalo, but they have a lot to be proud of this season. They won their division for the first time in 25 years and made it to the AFC championship game for the first time in 27 years. This team is set up to rule the AFC East for the foreseeable future. If they can continue to build around Josh Allen this team could find themselves back in the final four sooner rather than later.