The Cincinnati Bengals will be traveling to Arrowhead Stadium to face the Kansas City Chiefs for the AFC Championship game, which will take one of them to the Super Bowl. The game on Sunday night will be a rematch of last year’s conference championship where Joe Burrow led an insane comeback to tie the game and take it to overtime where rookie sensation Evan McPherson kicked the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI.
The Chiefs – Bengals rivalry is quickly becoming a fan favorite, but it has been one-sided until now. The Joe Burrow Bengals are 3-0 against the Chiefs in the past two years, including the regular season and playoffs.
Kansas City isn’t at its best with quarterback Patrick Mahomes recovering from an ankle injury and tight end Travis Kelce being questionable to play with a back injury. They are really hoping that this won’t cost them another trip to the Super Bowl and that history will repeat itself taking the Bengals to compete with the NFC Champions for the World Championship.
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JuJu Smith-Schuster is 6-3 against the Bengals in his career
Chiefs’ newest wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster has had some experience playing the Cincinnati Bengals during his time as a Pittsburgh Steeler. Smith-Schuster has faced the Bengals nine times in his five-year career in Pittsburgh before signing a one-year deal worth $10.75 million with the Chiefs in 2022. He went 6-3 against Cincinnati and revealed what makes them such a tough opponent.
“I just think, honestly, they’re just a physical team,” Smith-Schuster said, via Ed Easton of USA Today Sports. “They just play physical from start to finish, all four quarters. That’s something I saw playing them in Cincinnati, and it felt like a playoff atmosphere game, and that’s kind of what I’m expecting to see here.”
Bengals cornerback Mike Hilton dubbed the Arrowhead Stadium as ‘Burrowhead’ in honor of Joe Burrow’s undefeated record at Geha Field during last week’s win over the Buffalo Bills. This started a whole new trash-talking which involved Cincinnati’s Mayor Aftab Pureval issuing a WHO DEY proclamation on Twitter. Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones further aggravated the rivalry by saying “See y’all at Burrowhead Stadium” in the press conference.
JuJu Smith-Schuster talked about all the ‘Burrowhead’ comments that have been floating around the league and said, “I’ve been playing against this team since I’ve been in NFL, so it was nothing new to me. The Bengals, they’ve always been the rah-rah team. And you know, they back it up. And so they’ve been doing that this whole season. So it’s just more so for us, for me to go out there and just play, just play ball and have fun. And just talking with my shoulder pads and helmet.”
The 26-year-old wide receiver out of USC has had 78 receptions for 933 yards and 3 touchdowns. With Kelce being out of the game, Mahomes will have to throw to Smith-Schuster more often for those crucial third downs and red zone conversions. Let’s see whether the Bengals back up their trash talk or are they are just all talk and no play on Sunday.
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