And then there were two.
The Cincinnati Bengals are back in the AFC Championship almost exactly one year from the day they made it to the big game following a commanding divisional round victory on the road against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday afternoon.
Unsurprisingly, the Bengals will head back to Arrowhead Stadium to rematch the Chiefs after defeating them in last year's title game in overtime. But this will more specifically be a fresher rematch of last December's victory against the Chiefs in Cincinnati by that same score.
Back to Buffalo though. The Bengals played a complete game and didn't get the Bills take a lead, no matter how close Bills quarterback Josh Allen and his team was to swinging the game away from Cincinnati.
Although Allen was a forceful challenge for Lou Anarumo's defense, the Bengals limited him to just enough magical plays that limited the Bills to just 10 points. Meanwhile, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow blocked out the snow, noise and cold weather to put together another maestro postseason performance just as he's mostly done in his young playoff career.
Make that 10 straight wins for the Bengals, extending their franchise record that they already set with wild card win last weekend over Baltimore. The Bengals may not have been placed as the same competitive tier as Buffalo and Kansas City by some experts in the preseason. Yet, the Bengals proved they can not only be in the same tier, but defeat those teams to get back to the big game.
The Strictly Stripes crew has another playoff postgame edition on deck as they look at every single ankle that went the Bengals' way. They also give a premature set-up for next week's AFC Championship rematch with Kansas City and explain how close the Bengals can make that game.
This podcast features Mohammad Ahmad, Andrew Gillis and Michael Niziolek.
Music: Starfields by Hallman
Music Link: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/nQ9ldbVF7D/
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