Well, it will be the Kansas City Chiefs coming to Gillette Stadium next week, but the injury fallout on Wild Card Saturday in the AFC has thrown the wide-open conference into an even bigger mishmash of hopefuls.
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Kansas City beat Houston 30-0 on the road for its 11th straight win to advance to the AFC divisional round.
Their win, combined with the Pittsburgh Steelers 18-16 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, means the Chiefs are headed to New England. Kansas City can get after the quarterback and shut down the run, two things that should be very effective against Brady and the boys.
One telling aspect of the Chiefs win?
During the third quarter, the game decidedly out of reach, Jeremy Maclin caught a short pass and was injured on the subsequent tackle. Maclin will have an MRI exam on Sunday and the Chiefs will know whether or not they’ll have the services of the team’s first 1,000-yard receiver since Dwayne Bowe in 2011. Saturday was Reid’s first playoff victory since he led the Eagles to the NFC championship game in 2008.
“We wanted to come in and dominate”, Chiefs safety Eric Berry said after the game. He missed the entire 2013 season because of a torn right ACL.
Only the Denver Broncos’ defense ranks higher than Kansas City in Football Outsiders’ weighted metric, and only the Seattle Seahawks allowed fewer total points over the final four games of the regular season. Alex Smith completed 17 of 22 passes for 190 yards and one touchdown against one interception.
Roethlisberger has the same number of playoff wins in only 16 postseason starts and one more Super Bowl ring (2-1) than Manning.
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If Roethlisberger can’t play because of his shoulder injury, Landry Jones would make his first career playoff start.
