Eagles and Chiefs Advance to Super Bowl LVII

When the dust cleared in the NFL Playoffs, the #1 seeds for both the NFC and AFC advanced to Super Bowl LVII.

The San Francisco 49ers had gone along way this season with rookie Brock Purdy, essentially their third string quarterback, winning nine in a row including the playoffs. But Purdy went down with an arm injury in the first quarter in the NFC Championship at Philadelphia, and the Eagles took advantage, rolling to a 31-7 victory. Purdy was forced to come back later in the game, because his successor, Josh Johnson, got injured as well, leaving the game for concussion protocol. Not having a quarterback who can throw the ball is not a recipe for success in any NFL game, let alone a conference championship game. It might not have mattered all that much; the Eagles were dominating in this one.

Highlights

The AFC Championship between the defending conference champion Cincinnati Bengals and the champ from two years ago, Kansas City Chiefs was a much closer affair. Harrison Butker kicked a 45 yard field goal with three seconds left to give the host Chiefs a 23-20 victory in this rematch of last year’s AFC Championship. Prior to the field goal, there was a controversial unnecessary roughness penalty on Cincinnati defensive end Joseph Ossai for pushing a scrambling Patrick Mahomes into the bench area. Those 15 yards helped the Chiefs gain enough ground on the play for the winning field goal in regulation.

Highlights

The Chiefs advance to their fifth Super Bowl (they are 2-2 all time); the Eagles to their fourth (1-3). They have not played each other in a Super Bowl, and they did not play each other in the regular season. The Super Bowl is February 12th.