BALTIMORE – Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs showcased their championship mettle once again Sunday, beating the top-seeded Baltimore Ravens 17-10 in the AFC title game.
Reid, Patrick Mahomes and company are headed to their fourth Super Bowl in six seasons not because they boasted a prolific offensive attack or a breathtaking fireworks display. No, they punched their ticket to Las Vegas because Reid and his staff won the chess game with John Harbaugh and his Ravens assistants and positioned their team to earn the grittiest victory in the history of this budding dynasty.
The Chiefs, long known for lighting up scoreboards with Mahomes’ dizzying, dazzling heroics, didn’t even score in Sunday’s second half. Instead, they drew heavily on experience and also leaned on the most dominant defense Kansas City has fielded in the last six seasons. That defense delivered a performance that largely neutralized presumptive NFL MVP Lamar Jackson and one of the most impressive offensive attacks of the league’s 2023 season.
But overall, the Ravens found themselves on the losing side after succumbing to pressure early and failing to overcome crippling mistakes later.
Well aware of how the Ravens are built and how they like to attack offensively (with a strong running game that provides balance and paves the way for a better passing attack), the Chiefs understood the importance of a fast start. They applied pressure early to force Baltimore into a quick three-and-out and then delivered as impressive an offensive performance as they have all postseason: a 10-play, 86-yard drive capped by Mahomes’ 19-yard pass. yards to Travis Kelce. With that, the Chiefs extended their game-opening touchdown streak to eight straight playoff games.

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The Ravens responded with a touchdown of their own: a worthy escape from Jackson and a 30-yard strike to Zay Flowers. But the Chiefs came right back with a methodical, 16-play, 75-yard drive that ticked away at 9:02.
Mahomes couldn’t miss, completing 11 consecutive passes to start the game. Kelce was more indefensible than ever. And that Chiefs defense, which has gone from serviceable to dominant this season, kept up the pressure and delivered a strip-sack and recovery to Baltimore’s 33-yard line.
And just like that, the Ravens found themselves on high alert.
Punts, touchdowns and fumbles were not the desired features for Baltimore early in the first half. The Ravens defense had allowed game-opening touchdowns just twice in their last 26 games, and until Kelce’s touchdown catch, Baltimore’s star second-year safety Kyle Hamilton had never surrendered a touchdown as a pro .
The score might have been 14-7, but because Baltimore found itself in unfamiliar territory, the deficit seemed much larger. And it was then that the Crows committed their mortal sin.
Overwhelmed by how easily the Chiefs had scored, they panicked. Defensively, they momentarily lost their footing while committing life-giving personal fouls. And offensively, they were led to believe that they had slipped into a much bigger hole than the one they actually were in. As a result, they have abandoned their bread and butter and tried to adapt a style of play that they are not built for.
After dominating the field all season, the Ravens opted for a pass-heavy offense early.
For the remainder of the second quarter, the Ravens ran the ball only twice (eleven on an unscheduled play by Jackson). For the rest of the game, they only ran the ball seven more times. The league’s top running team – a unit that averaged 156.5 rushing yards per game while boasting the most balanced offense in the NFL – became one-dimensional and finished with just 81 yards on the ground, never regaining control in a very winnable game.

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The Ravens trailed just 17-7 at halftime. Yet in the second half they came out with the same frenetic feel and approach, as if they were being followed by a wider margin. They kept shooting even as their defense kept them in the game and the Chiefs off the scoreboard.
“It was just that kind of game, I would say,” Harbaugh said of the season-low 16 rushing attempts. “That’s just how it ended.”
The absence of a running game meant that Baltimore’s offense never regained the rhythm it has carried so often this season. And the lack of balance took the pressure off the Chiefs’ defense because it allowed Kansas City’s pass-rushers to cover their ears and chase Jackson. Meanwhile, when the quarterback wasn’t getting hit, a familiar problem – a lack of consistency in the receiving end – emerged for the Ravens.
Again and again, Jackson dropped back to throw, but struggled to find an open receiver. Aside from Flowers, who finished the game with five receptions on eight targets for 115 yards and a touchdown, Baltimore’s receivers struggled mightily to gain separation. Running back Justice Hill was the second leading receiver with four receptions, and only in the fourth quarter did Odell Beckham Jr. get involved (three receptions for 22 yards).
“We could have run the ball,” Jackson said. “But we were just down and just trying to get the ball downfield. “You have to make something happen.”

Zay Flowers had a touchdown catch Sunday but also a costly fumble. (Geoff Burke/USA Today)
Although one-dimensional, the Ravens had a chance. To open the fourth quarter, they reached the shadow of the Kansas City goal line with a five-play, 78-yard drive, highlighted by a 54-yard strike to Flowers. But that possession ended painfully with a fumble when Kansas City’s L’Jarius Sneed punched the ball out of Flowers’ grasp as the receiver dove for the end zone after an 8-yard catch.
And on the next possession, after reaching Kansas City’s 25, Jackson threw an interception in triple coverage while trying to connect with tight end Isaiah Likely.
A 43-yard field goal by Justin Tucker with 2:38 left cut the deficit to a touchdown, but the Ravens got no closer.
The Chiefs didn’t score in the second half, but they didn’t need to. They did just enough on offense to charm their dominant defense and run precious minutes off the clock: five minutes here, two minutes there, another four there. By the end of the match, they had won the time of possession battle of 37:30 to 22:30.
The loss represents a missed opportunity for the Ravens, although the game was never as close as the score might indicate. Jackson and his teammates complained that they only managed one touchdown and will spend the offseason reproducing costly mistakes. It’s impossible to help but wonder if a more patient approach would have better benefited the Ravens by helping them find a better offensive flow throughout the game.
“You want to use the saying, ‘I’d like to get this back or get this play back,’ but you can’t get those plays back,” right tackle Morgan Moses said. “You have to learn from them and move forward. And you know, it’s not over. Any time you have a quarterback like Lamar, you have an opportunity to play in games like this again.”
This will hurt for a while though, especially with how it ended.
The 2023 season was a year of change and growth in Baltimore, and perhaps the Ravens can build on that. But on Sunday, as they aimed for their ultimate goal, they drifted away from their identity when the pressure reached its highest point and they never recovered.
(Top photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images)