Arrowhead Pride
Houston put up a fight in Saturday’s Divisional round matchup — but Kansas City’s top players did what they do.
After their 27-19 victory over the Houston Texans in Week 16, there were plenty of observers who expected the Kansas City Chiefs would roll right over the Texans in the Divisional round of the playoffs; there’s a perception that the team can just throw a switch and beat any squad in front of them.
But in Saturday’s 23-14 win over the Texans — a victory that sends the team to its seventh consecutive AFC Championship — we saw that Houston was a more difficult opponent than we might have imagined.
“If you’re going to step out here on the football field, you’ve always got something to prove,” Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt after the game. “I wish it was just a flip of a switch — [that] I could just turn it on like that. But I think it was everybody in that building all week long — really, the past two or three weeks — figuring out how to get our bodies the best rest and [be] ready for the playoffs for a run like this.”
It was just what head coach Andy Reid expected from a Houston team coached by DeMeco Ryans, who played for Reid during his final season with the Philadelphia Eagles.
“This isn’t an easy thing,” he told reporters after the game. “That’s a good football team. DeMeco’s done a phenomenal job with that team. I had him as a player, [and] now I get to see him as a coach. He’s doing great things as a coach, so [I have] a ton of respect for him and what he’s done.”
Kelce was also impressed with the Texans.
“They’re extremely tough individuals,” he maintained, “and when they play together like that, it can be really hard to beat them. I think that has a lot to do with their head coach and how that trickles down with his leadership and mentality.”
“[It’s a] phenomenal defense that they’ve got,” noted Reid, “so I’m proud of our guys for how they handled it. We knocked a little of the rust out. Everybody stayed positive and with each other — and that whole bit — and here we sit with a championship game.”
No one played a bigger role in the win than Kelce, who recorded seven catches for 117 yards — including a 49-yard catch-and-run that set up the team’s first touchdown. But the play from Saturday’s game that we’ll be talking about for years to come was quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ 11-yard touchdown pass to the tight end — which he somehow managed to throw as he was being tackled.
“The touchdown throw to Trav was incredible,” declared Reid. “For him to be able to get his body in position to make that throw? [It] was great.”
The head coach never loses sight of how much it means for...
