Five Observations From New England Patriots 27-20 Win Over Kansas City Chiefs
By Hal Bent
The New England Patriots hosted the Kansas City Chiefs in the Divisional Round of the playoffs on Saturday afternoon at Gillette Stadium. The Chiefs came into the game winners of their last ten regular season games and fresh off an undressing of former New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien, former understudy at quarterback Brian Hoyer, and the Houston Texans 30-0 in Houston.
Crushing the student was easy for the Chiefs, but matching up with the master was far more difficult as head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady defeated the Chiefs 27-20 to advance to their fifth consecutive AFC Championship game. Only the 1973-1977 Oakland Raiders have gone to five straight championship games since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. For the Patriots, it is their seventh AFC Championship game in the last ten years and tenth in the fifteen years of the Brady-Belichick era.
Here are five observations from the New England victory on Saturday that factored into the Patriots advancing to the AFC Championship game once again.
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