From feedback I got from a few folks on the tourney (and the greatness of 13 seconds and The Comeback) I decided to launch a Divisional Round Championship consolation of the Mahomes greatest postseason victory tournament. These games feature two most iconic playoff victories of Patrick’s career, so good that 13 seconds almost defeated our redemption AFC Championship against Joe Burrow and the Bengals, and The Comeback managed to get votes against a
Super Bowl victory. Winner will be crowned in 2 days and will be deemed the Divisional Playoff Champion
Game A: 6 seed AFC Divisional Round: Chiefs vs. Bills: Arrowhead Stadium, January 23, 2022
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Andy Reid
When it's grim, be the grim reaper
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The 6 seed of this matchup features arguably the greatest playoff game of all time from the opinion of NFL fans at large. Living in Bronco Country, it was like my entire facebook feed abandoned their Bronco fandom to tune into this game in the fourth quarter. CBS confirmed this trend, reporting that while the game started at 34 million viewers, the game spiked to nearly 52 million viewers by the end of the fourth quarter -- making it the most watched divisional round game since 2017. Josh Allen and the Bills came in with inarguably the hot hand. They blew the doors off the Patriots in their own redemption game and Allen was throwing like elite Favre walking into Arrowhead. McDermott, learning a lot from the previous season, refused to settle for field goals in this game and unleashed his offense. Throughout the game, the media hype that the Bills had the better overall team and were destined for the Super Bowl looked justified — and it left Mahomes needing to play a
perfect game to compete, and Mahomes
did. A heavyweight fight that forever gives Mahomes a “greatest of all time postseason performance” to his resume, this game has been constantly featured in NFL promotions since that time.
This game reached such an iconic status that it has its own wikipedia page dedicated to it (linked in the spoiler). Now considered to be one of the best football games in history, Buffalo fans compare the outcome's heartbreak to Wide Right, while Upton Bell, who played in the Greatest Game Ever Played, declared 13 seconds to be the greatest game he ever saw once it finished.
Game Highlights:
Game B: 10 seed AFC Divisional Round: Chiefs vs. Texans: Arrowhead Stadium, January 12th, 2020
The Chiefs faced off with the Texans and there was a lot of nervous anticipation throughout the fandom. Since Andrew Luck’s retirement, the media was hyping the Mahomes-Watson matchup to be the beginning of the
"Brady-Manning" next Brady-Manning rivalry. This rivalry started when the Chiefs famously traded up to select Mahomes OVER Watson in the 2017 draft and the Texans front office looked like they were left trawling the bar after the 2 am last call went out. The media
played into this from the beginning, and after Watson came into Arrowhead and beat the soundly beat the Chiefs early in the year - the narrative that Watson was a “winner” and Mahomes wasn’t was on the airwaves in KC talk radio leading into the playoffs. Before Mahomes crushed the
Brady-Manning comparisons by the 2020 opener, there was still a lingering question about whether the Chiefs made the right decision drafting Patrick by the media and
members of our own forum. The Chiefs had all the signs of playoff disappointment, with Chris Jones getting injured in a locker room basketball game that had all our local media up in arms, to our star receivers dropping passes, our special teams lighting off classic postseason disasters, and us finding ourselves down 0-24 against the immovable 50 years of Kansas City playoff disappointment. But then unstoppable force Patrick Mahomes entered the fray, and the rest is history.
Game Highlights:
VOTE for your favorite game! The Winner will be crowed on Monday as the Mahomes Playoff Divisional Round Champion.