By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
The Kansas City Chiefs scored more than thirty points for the first time since 24 games and they needed every one of them to break the hearts of Buffalo Bills fans again and head to their third Super Bowl in a row.
Harrison Butker’s field goal with 3:33 left provided the points. The Chiefs defense kept Buffalo from getting close enough to tie and clutch Marhomes to Pacheco and Mahomes to Perine passes made sure Buffalo never got another chance.
The Chiefs shut down the bills on third downs, letting them succeed only five times in fourteen changes. The Chiefs went 5 for 9. The Bills also converted four fourth downs but coiuldn’t make it happen in their last possession.
In about ten days the Chiefs will try to something no other team has done in the 59-year history of the Super Bowl—with a third straight Lombardi Trophy. They’ll face The Philadelphia Eagles, a team they beat to start the string of championships. Kansas City rallied from ten points down to beat the Eagles 38-35 on a Butker field goal.
Philadelphia demolished the Washington Commanders 55-23, a record scoring output since the beginning of the Super Bowl era.
The Bills and the Chiefs have met 56 times. The Chiefs have won just 25 of them—but four have kept the Bills from playing in the Super Bowl for the first time since they went to the game four straight years, 1990-93 with Jim Kelly at quarterback and Marve Levy as the coach. Levy coached the chiefs for five years before going to Buffalo. Levy will be more than halfway to his 100th birthday when his Chiefs, not his Bills, play another Super Bowl.
(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers split their two games last week but still moved up a little in the rankings. They’re 21st in the USA TODAY coaches poll. They’ve hopped up two slots in the AP sportswriters poll, to 20th. Missouri was up to 20th one week during the 2022-23 season, the first one for Coach Dennis Gates.
The Tigers face #5 Tennessee Thursday night and Tennessee Sunday afternoon. (ZOU)
(BASE BALL)—It originally was two words. Former Jefferson City Mayor John Christy pronounced it that way.
It’s getting closer. Pitcher and catchers are less than two weeks away from throwing their first pitch and catching it in Florida and Arizona.
(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals head into the 2025 season with three guys who were part of the 2011 rally-back World Series on the coaching staff to help the young Birds brow into a competitive team this year.
Three members of the “Memphis Mafia” are on the coaching staff this year==Jon Jay, Daniel Descalso, and David Freese. Descalso will start the season as the bench coach. Jay will work with young outfielders. And Freese will be on hand during Spring training as a consultant working with third basemen and first basement. At this point, he’ll be working with young backup candidates at third. The Cardinals have not yet moved Nolan Arenado but the speculation continues about what will happen with him, including
(ROYALS)—The Royals have made only minor adjustments during the off-season but they, too, have their speculators.
The first engines have started running hot at Daytona—
(RACING)—The Daytona 24-hours is the first major auto race of the new season each year and the final results at Daytona show that the race cars of Roger Penske will be another major problem for everybody else.
Penske Porsche driven by 2023 winner Felipe Nasr teamed with Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanhoor. Close behind was the Acura with Indycar drivers Felix Rosenqvist and Scott Dixon, with Colin Braun and Tom Blomquist, who had a few Indycar rides earlier.
Several other drivers from Indycar and NASCAR drove in other classes.