The Cincinnati Bengals and the Kansas City Chiefs battle for the AFC Championship once again. Ross Williams picks out his best bets.
NFL betting tips: AFC Championship
2pts Cincinnati Bengals to win at 11/10 (Betfair)
2pts Over 48 Total Match Points at 10/11 (General)
1pt Travis Kelce & Joe Mixon both to score a touchdown at 3/1 (bet365, Sky Bet)
When: 23:30 GMT, Sunday
TV: Sky Sports NFL
The Kansas City Chiefs have made their fifth-straight AFC Championship game, they’re at home and Patrick Mahomes is healthy enough to continue his MVP-calibre year as the team’s starting quarterback.
In other circumstances, you’d be forgiven for thinking this preview should end right now. It’s over, Kansas City can book their flights to Arizona and the Super Bowl, right?
Well, not so fast.
You see, beating the Chiefs has become the NFL’s Holy Grail. Once upon a time, beating Brady’s Patriots in Foxboro was the league’s ultimate challenge but now, Patrick Mahomes is 2023’s gold standard.
On home soil, Mahomes has 40 career wins and just nine defeats. It’s a remarkable record and testament to the dominance his Kansas City team have shown since he entered the league.
However, every superman has their kryptonite, and for Mahomes it comes in the shape of Joe Burrow.
Despite being unfancied in each – as he will be on Sunday – Burrow has an unblemished 3-0 record over Mahomes in the NFL, including last year’s edition of this very game, where the Bengals ran out 27-24 winners on their way to the Super Bowl.
In fact, in each of Burrow’s three victories over his AFC rival, Cincinnati have reached the end of the game clock three points to the good.
The Bengals are not a significantly better football team (most pundits will tell you that these two sides are incredibly evenly-matched) but for whatever reason, Burrow has the Chiefs’ number and that mental edge could pay dividends on Sunday night.
Much will be made of the firepower on the outside in this game. Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are arguably the NFL’s best receiving duo and the Chiefs aren’t short of options either, with speed threats aplenty.
However, I believe this game will turn into a tale of two players.
Mahomes comes into this game banged up after suffering an ankle injury against the Jaguars and that means he’ll rely heavily on the NFL’s most productive safety blanket, Travis Kelce.
The Bengals know traffic is coming the way of the future Hall of Fame tight-end, but stopping it is a whole different story. Tre Flowers is battling through a hamstring injury so Cincinnati are already on the back foot in terms of working out the ideal match-up for Kelce and the truth is, they simply may not have one.
I expect plenty of production from Kelce after a 90-yard, scoring performance last week and the Bengals will have an incredibly hard time keeping him out of the end zone; particularly with Mahomes needing to get the ball out quickly and often to avoid movement outside the pocket that could aggravate his injury.
I have no real doubts over Kelce bringing points for Kansas City all day long, but I’m even more confident in the Bengals’ ability to mount up the pressure and even surpass the Chiefs’ offensive efforts one more time.
In other words, this should be a high-scoring affair that surpasses the 48-point threshold, as the match-up has in each of Burrow’s three encounters with Mahomes.
When these two sides met earlier in the season, back-up running back Samaje Perine was pivotal, rushing for 106 yards on 21 carries. Kansas City, while worrying about Burrow and the threats outside, couldn’t handle him and this makes me believe in another player having a big day this weekend.
Joe Mixon was unavailable for that regular season clash, but after a fantastic season and a 100-yard performance of his own against the Bills, he’s ready to go.
Mixon is objectively a better player than Perine and seeing as the Chiefs shipped 144 rushing yards to the playing-from-behind Jaguars a week ago, I don’t believe Kansas City’s defence is in a position to stop him.
I expect plenty of Mixon yards, but also success at the business end of the field. Despite some knocks, Mixon has had a productive seven-touchdown year and his coaches trusted him to find the end zone against Buffalo last week. He obliged.
The Bengals offence is built for aggression and moving down the field quickly, so I suspect they’ll find themselves in the red-zone regularly. This is where they shine, against the 31st ranked red-zone defence in the NFL.
It’s gone under the radar this year, but the Chiefs have not been able to stop teams when they’ve marched on them. This is how Cincinnati won in December, and it’s how they win on Sunday.
Cincinnati Bengals @ Kansas City Chiefs best bets
- 2pts Cincinnati Bengals to win at 11/10 (Betfair)
- 2pts Over 48 Total Match Points at 10/11 (General)
- 1pt Travis Kelce & Joe Mixon both to score a touchdown at 3/1 (bet365, Sky Bet)
Odds correct at 1330 GMT (28/01/23)
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