It was a tough Sunday for the Baltimore Ravens as their dreams of a Super Bowl came to a quick and sudden end. The defending champion Kansas City Chiefs earned another trip to the NFL's grand finale, with a 17-10 win over Baltimore in the AFC Championship game.
The Ravens were behind almost from the opening kickoff. Baltimore had the ball first but could not get a first down and had to punt the ball to Kansas City. The Chiefs, with their quarterback Patrick Mahomes playing flawlessly, easily drove ball 86 yards on 11 plays taking a 7-0 lead on a 19 yard pass from Mahomes to Taylor Swift's favorite player, Travis Kelce
The Ravens quickly responded tying the contest 7-7 on a 30 yard touchdown pass from Lamar Jackson to Zay Flowers.
When Isiah Pacheco ran the ball into the end zone from two yards out, Kansas City took a 14-7 lead and would hold onto the lead the rest of the way.
The Chiefs led 17-7 at halftime.
In the second half the Ravens moved the ball but hurt themselves with two costly turnovers.
The most disheartening one came in the third quarter when Flowers took a Jackson pass to the one yard line. But as he was about to go past the goal line he fumbled the ball into the endzone where it was recovered by the Chiefs.
After the game Jackson said the Ravens will learn from this.
"We made it here. We just have to finish it next time. But, I'm very proud of this team," he said.
His counterpart on the Chiefs, Mahomes, was already looking toward the February 11 Super Bowl.
"Our job now is to prepare ourselves to play a good team in the Super Bowl and get that ring," he said.
The Chiefs have a chance to become the first team to win back to back Super Bowls since 2004 when the New England Patriots accomplished the feat.
Ravens fans were obviously disappointed.
Wendy Steele embraced her two children after the game and said, "we're speechless. I mean we were the favorites. I mean we were the favorites......I don't even know how long it's going to take to get over this. We're devastated."
The Ravens were a 4.5 point favorite before the game.
Even though they lost, the Ravens had more total yards 336 to 319. But the biggest statistic was turnovers. Baltimore had three while the Chief had none.
