Nine straight Victory Mondays, and two more to go!

Sunday was an edge of your seat, nail-biting, frustrating, exhilarating ride… and it ended exactly how we hoped it would – with the Steelers in the AFC Championship game!

Sunday’s Divisional Playoff game was both one of the ugliest games we’ve watched, and also one of the most beautiful.

There is plenty of Good, Bad and Ugly to go around, so let’s get to it!

The Good

The Killer B’s – All 4 of them

Ben, Bell, Brown and… Boswell?

Hey, the kid earned being included, even if he thinks he is far removed from that group: when the only points in a playoff victory come off your toe, well, you deserve inclusion.

Boswell was a perfect six for six on field goals, setting a postseason NFL record for most in a game.

His other job, kicking off went pretty well also.

In fact, the only flaw in his entire day was that first scrub kick, which put the Chiefs on the 45-yard line to start the game. When you kick the ball like that (and it was a kick he was instructed to make) there is no telling how the ball is going to bounce.

So, yeah, that wasn’t good, but other than that, the Wizard of Boz was magic.

Ben was solid. Yes, he had a pick, and while it’s really hard to blame tipped-ball INT’s on the QB, he changed that play from a run, to a pass.

So I guess that the buck stops with Ben there. Ben played well, but not great.

He gets mentioned here because when the chips were down, and we needed a couple of complete passes to get a first down and ice the game, he threw two of the best passes he had thrown all day.

Game over.

Brown, during the game, was his normal self for the most part. If Ben doesn’t under-throw him, he would have torched Justin Houston for a touchdown. (How many crazy coverages on both side of the ball did we see yesterday? Justin Houston on AB? James Harrison on Tyreek Hill? Yikes!)

He made catches when need be, and again, the biggest reason he is here is that last catch: for the final first down, which sealed the deal.

I said in the preview that I thought Le’Veon Bell would break his week old playoff rushing record, and sure enough, he did! I know we need balance, but Bell, especially in that first half, was unstoppable.

For the life of me, I don’t know why we kept running down to the 20, and then trying to throw the ball into the endzone.

Things that make you go WTF?!

Bell continued to amaze everyone, and his patience and vision was showcased in this game. It would have been interesting to see if we could have powered the ball into the endzone instead of trying to throw it – maybe next week?

Defense

I said in the preview that the first drive was going to be tough, and that the Chiefs would likely score. I said that even though I knew the Steelers had not given up an opening drive touchdown all season. I still thought there was a good chance that the first drive was gonna be tough.

Starting at the 45 certainly didn’t help the defense out.

But after that first drive, the defense balled.

Bud Dupree is turning into a star. He’s growing with every single game he plays.

Let’s not forget that New England didn’t have to deal with him (or really much James Harrison, Sean Davis or Artie Burns) in that first meeting.

Dupree doesn’t always get there, but he’s starting to be “felt” regardless. He caused Alex Smith to throw a lame duck that Ryan Shazier picked for his 4th interception in the last four games.

He impacts the game, and he’s getting better.

The secondary got the benefit of some dropped passes yesterday, and I don’t think they can count on that next week. They will have to play cleaner.

Still, Mike Mitchell, Sean Davis, Ross Cockrell, Will Gay and Artie Burns played inspired ball at times, and it was good enough.

Uncle James did get winded at one point, but you know what, he still got a sack, and 5-6 tackles. He remains an impact player.

It was a good, solid performance, and it will need to be again next week.

Special Teams

I don’t even know what to say! Special Teams has been a sore spot all year, especially kick coverage. I can’t make a judgement on punt coverage, because frankly there wasn’t any.

However, kick off coverage was great. (Minus that first one of course.)

Considering who we were covering (Tyreek Hill) the Chiefs return game was a non-factor. Vince Williams, Jarvis Jones, Tyler Matakevich, Robert Golden and Jordan Dangerfield did what we haven’t been able to consistently do all year: they stopped kick returns from being a factor.

The O-Line

I just kept watching how the offensive line was blowing the Chiefs right off of the ball. Credit the Chiefs for making some adjustments late in the game to try and take Le’Veon Bell out of the game, but even with 6, 7 and 8 guys in the box most of the game, Bell ran for 170 yards. The credit for that lies in large share, on the play of, the “Goon Squad”.

I have one criticism, and it’s really on Alejandro Villanueva more than anything else.

On Ben’s pick, it feels like he should have gone out and engaged the defensive end; maybe stopped him from having a clear jump to tip that pass. It felt like several passes to Big Al’s side got tipped, and I don’t expect that he can do a lot about it, but that one pass felt like maybe he should have gone out after that guy.

It’s nit-picking though: the line was awesome as a whole.

The Bad

The Video

Look, I know this isn’t a game-related thing; it didn’t happen until after the game, and a huge helping heap of the Nation probably thinks it’s no big deal (or maybe even a good thing).

I don’t.

I think I said all I need to say about this subject right here.

It was not a good look.

The Ugly

Red Zone Offense

Technically we were 0-4 in the red zone. If you extend that out to the thirty yard line, we were 0-7.

Six field goals and one INT. Final score, 18-16.

If just two of those field goals were touchdowns, the final score changes to 26-16.

Convert 4, and it’s 34-16.

The Steelers dominated the first 3 quarters of this game completely. Yet they had to hold their breath to eek out a win.

Red zone efficiency cannot be this bad next week. Especially when the opponent was 100% (2 for 2) in the red zone.

The Chiefs are a good defense, and a great defense in preventing scores. They do most of that through turnovers, and that particular bug only bit us once, so we did a good job there.

But converting in the red zone was definitely a problem yesterday, and it needs to be fixed quickly.

Conclusion

I really don’t care how we win; and Nation, neither should you.

Ugly wins count for exactly the same thing in the win column as pretty ones do.

Yesterday was the ugliest of ugly wins, but the thing that makes it a beautiful thing is that at the end of the game, we did win.

Now we move on to New England for the AFC Championship game. I’m going to tell you right now, Arrowhead is a tougher environment than New England is. The Chiefs don’t need to sabotage the headsets, because the crowd is so loud you can’t hear anyway.

The Chiefs have a better pass defense. The Patriots have a better rush defense.

It’s not going to be easier, but at the same time I don’t know if it’s going to be that much tougher either.

Since I need to save some stuff for the preview, I’ll stop there. It’s Championship week, and we are still playing.

What more can you ask for?

Until next time Nation!