Getty Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon carries the football against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Cincinnati Bengals have already announced their rallying cry ahead of a Divisional Round matchup with the Buffalo Bills — they feel disrespected.
“To be honest, it’s disrespectful,” Bengals running back and team leader Joe Mixon told reporters on January 18 while discussing the ticket sales for a potential AFC Championship game in Atlanta between the Kansas City Chiefs and Bills. “But we’re not worried about that s***.”
Mixon continued: “We got a game to play on Sunday right? Like I said, we are gonna go out there on Sunday and we’re gonna do what the hell we got to do to come back with that W. And then we’re going to see what they’re talking about.”
Ex-Chiefs OL Geoff Schwartz Corrects Bengals RB Joe Mixon
Former Chiefs offensive lineman turned football analyst, Geoff Schwartz, saw this story and responded on Twitter. His sarcastic reply was pretty popular among fans, with over 1,700 likes and 110 retweets.
“They are already selling tickets for the Bengals to host the AFCCG,” he commented back. “So disrespectful to the Chiefs and Bills.”
Similar to last season, Cincy is playing the “us against the world” card in an effort to motivate the locker room and why not? It worked last year and it could certainly work again, being that the Bengals were the hottest AFC team heading into the playoffs.
At the same time, you got to respect Schwartz for calling a spade a spade.
Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk even admitted that “logistics make it impossible to avoid selling tickets ahead of knowing who will actually be playing in the game, but the Bengals have clearly been using the league’s machinations as motivation during this postseason run and we’ll see if they can use that to their advantage in Buffalo this weekend” — after covering Mixon’s remarks.
In order for fans of each franchise to be able to travel to the game (should it occur), they have to set these plans in motion ahead of time. It’s not disrespect, it’s common knowledge. But no, everyone is out to get the Cincinnati Bengals.
Hours Away From Chiefs vs. Jaguars at Arrowhead Stadium
At the time of this article posting, we are just a few hours away from the Chiefs’ first playoff matchup of the 2022-23 postseason versus the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The big storylines are somewhat obvious in this one:
- Head coach Andy Reid going up against a former coaching disciple in Doug Pederson.
- Leader of the new quarterback generation Patrick Mahomes II facing the latest “chosen one,” Trevor Lawrence.
- Revenge for Andre Cisco’s hit on JuJu Smith-Schuster?
Aside from that, it’s a relatively unassuming scenario for the NFL — which explains the early Saturday start time. Kansas City and Jacksonville are not rivals. If anything, the two teams appear to have a tremendous respect for one another after hearing players and coaches speak in press conferences this week.
The one early talking point will be this: Can the Chiefs come out hungry after a wild card bye?
This Jags team is young and aggressive — which can be a flaw as much as it can be a strength. If KC is able to lean on their experience and get off to a hot start out of the gate, this is a game they should be able to win at home in front of Chiefs Kingdom.
Having said that, Kansas City must play a full 60 minutes with their foot on the gas pedal. We’ve already witnessed this Jacksonville team come back to beat the Los Angeles Chargers when all hope seemed lost, and they attempted a similar comeback versus the Chiefs in Week 10 — falling short after a fourth quarter interception by Mahomes.