Chiefs lean on defense, mental toughness to defeat Ravens, advance to fourth Super Bowl in five years

BALTIMORE – In the moment, it felt like the AFC Championship Game was more about the implosion of the Baltimore Ravens, the failure to get the offense in any kind of rhythm, the lack of discipline, the turnovers. There is an entire offseason to dissect why Lamar Jackson was so sublime until Sunday, why the brilliance hasn't yet translated into a Super Bowl trip, why a throw into triple coverage in the end zone is likely to be replayed over and over during the Ravens' postmortems.

But to focus on the Ravens' stunning collapse Sunday is to minimize that the Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl after winning 17-10. Again. And for the first time in the Patrick Mahomes era, somewhat improbably. Do you remember that the offense was struggling so badly that Mahomes yelled at both his teammates and officials in frustration after pass after pass slipped through his receivers' hands? That was this season.

It was poetic that Marquez Valdes-Scantling made the third-down reception, falling backward, with Ravens tumbling atop him, to seal the game and send the Chiefs to their fourth Super Bowl in five years. Valdes-Scantling had a memorable drop on a deep ball in the Chiefs' loss to the Eagles in the regular season, one of the many signals this season that the Chiefs were unusually vulnerable, that they could be taken this time. Mahomes put a lot of air under the pass, it was an easy reception for Valdes-Scantling, and it was a sign that for all the messiness and self-inflicted wounds of early this season -- hey, how about all those times they lined up offsides early in the season? -- the rest of the AFC could not knock the Chiefs out, and the Chiefs would not be knocked off their belief that they had enough. Coach Andy Reid