Patrick Mahomes finally got the best of Joe Burrow.
All he needed was a little push.
Harrison Butker made a 45-yard field goal with 3 seconds left — Mahomes was pushed out of bounds after Cincinnati’s Joseph Osai was flagged for a 15-yard penalty — and the Chiefs beat the Bengals 23-20 in the AFC Championship Game. To make it back to the Super Bowl.
Kansas City will face the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl on February 12 in Glendale, Arizona.
The Eagles opened as 1 1/2-point favorite, according to Fanduel Sportsbook.
There’s no shortage of storylines: Kansas City coach Andy Reid goes up against his old team — the one he led to Super Bowl 39 — in a game that marks the first time a black starting quarterback has played in a Super Bowl, along with Mahomes and Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts.
On top of that, there’s a brother-versus-brother showdown between Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Philadelphia center Jason Kelce.
“It’s officially a Chiefs fan this season!!” Jason Kelce tweeted after the Chiefs win.
The Chiefs have routinely made deep postseason runs since Mahomes came to town as the franchise quarterback.
It was their fifth straight trip to the AFC title game and their third Super Bowl appearance in that span. They beat the 49ers for the NFL title in the 2019 season but lost to the Bucs the following season.
The Eagles defeated the Niners 31-7 earlier in the NFC title game on Sunday. They have been dominant in the playoffs thus far, even beating the New York Giants 38-7 in the divisional round.
Philadelphia is back in the Super Bowl after five years, beating the New England Patriots 41-33 on February 4, 2018.
Now a new generation of Eagles — led by coach Nick Sirianni and Hurts — will come to Arizona to try to win another title.
The Chiefs-Bengal game looked like it was going to overtime before Osai’s unguarded play. Mahomes — who was playing with a badly sprained ankle — was running to get a first down in the final seconds as Ossai tried hard to track him down.
Mahomes was out of bounds when Ossai pushed him, sending both players to the turf. The ensuing 15-yard penalty was enough to push Butker into field-goal range and the kick split the uprights.
After the match, a distraught Osai sat on the bench with his head in his hands.
The Bengals and Chiefs were playing for the fourth time in less than 400 days, and Cincinnati had won the previous three meetings — all by three points. It was also decided by a field goal, and all Burrow could do was see.
The Bengals lost to the Rams in last year’s Super Bowl and missed another chance to get back to the title game.