The AFC is WIDE OPEN: Choose your fighter...
Ding, dong. The king is dead... at least in 2025. Week 14 brings clarity on who just may seize this opportunity.
Forty-four seconds remained in the third quarter when the tycoon lording over this sport took a shotgun snap at his own 38-yard line.
World order would finally be restored.
The latest AFC uprising, these pesky Houston Texans, were about to be dealt with the appropriate level of punishment. Because, simply, Patrick Mahomes is king. The Kansas City Chiefs are a dynasty. This was Arrowhead. No team strings together four straight three-and-outs — producing minus-2 yards — and survives. Not against Mahomes. He corrals that snap, waddles around a muddy pocket, sets his feet and launches a mortar through your defense.
This time, however, his floater lands in the hands of Rashee Rice and… Jalen Pitre triggers.
With an eight-yard running start, the Texans’ safety steamrolls the KC wideout. It’s a hit seen on more hockey rinks than football fields. Creed Humphrey, Kansas City’s lumberjack center, comically protests by chest-bumping Pitre. But obviously, the hit is perfectly legal. A scowling Pitre nods as if daring more Chiefs receivers to trespass air space.
Two snaps later, Mahomes airmails one 50+ yards and another one of Houston’s savages delivers. Kamari Lassiter picks off the three-time champ and holds an index finger to his lips. It’s a ridiculously athletic play. Lassiter sticks with Hollywood Brown’s 4.27 speed stride for stride, flips his hips and finds the ball. As he trots to the sideline, he finds an NBC camera and again informs everyone to be quiet.
So much for another Chiefs coronation. In a 20-10 win, the Texans intercepted Mahomes three times, hit him eight times and forced more incompletions (19) than completions (14). His passer rating of 19.8 was by far a career low.
For the first time since 2010, we’ll see an AFC Championship Game without two of the greatest ever: Mahomes and Tom Brady.
There’s an opening in this conference that has not existed in 15 years.
On the Fear Factor scale — as we sit on Dec. 8 — three carnivores stand out from the rest…