The forecast is calling for what could be the coldest game in the history of Arrowhead Stadium to be played when the Patriots and Chiefs meet in the AFC Championship game.
FOXBORO – Frigid conditions are forecast for Kansas City this Sunday – and Arrowhead Stadium will be at a fever pitch.
As safety Devin McCourty said following the Patriots’ 41-28 romp over the Los Angeles Chargers in the teams’ AFC divisional-round playoff game at Gillette Stadium on Sunday (players had Monday off): “We’ve got a lot of work in front of us if we want to go beat that team at home.”
Indeed, they do.
Losers of five of their eight regular-season games away from Foxboro during the regular season, the Patriots will be headed to Kansas City to play the Chiefs in an AFC Championship game to be played in front of a raucous fandom whose team hasn’t advanced to the Super Bowl since Hank Stram’s team defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7, in Super Bowl IV at Tulane Stadium on Jan. 11, 1970.
The National Weather Service is calling for temperatures at kickoff (6:40 Eastern Time) to range from 10 degrees to sub-zero.
En route to a 12-4 regular-season finish the Chiefs went 7-1 at home, allowing just 18 points per game and losing only to the aforementioned Chargers, 29-28, on Dec. 13, then they snapped a streak of six straight postseason losses at home (an NFL record) with a 31-13 divisional-round rout of the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday.
In order to get to their first Super Bowl in more than 49 years, the Chiefs must beat a Patriots team that defeated them, 43-40, in Week 6 of the regular season, but that game was played in Foxboro where the Pats were unbeaten (9-0 overall) this season.
The Patriots have been a completely different team on the road.
To review:
• The Patriots fell 18 points behind Jacksonville in the first half (21-3) in losing to the Jaguars, 31-20, at TIAA Bank Field in Week 2 of the regular season, a game played on Sept. 16.
• The following week, the Pats found themselves in a 10-point hole in the first half (13-3), then surrendered the last 13 points of the game in dropping a 26-10 decision to the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.
• On Nov. 11, they were down by 14 at halftime (24-10), then got shut out in the second half in getting humiliated by Tennessee, 34-10, at Nissan Stadium.
• On Dec. 9, easily the most crushing loss of them all, 34-33, when they allowed the Miami Dolphins to pull off the old hook-and-ladder for a 69-yard touchdown, tight end Rob Gronkowski, the last line of defense, taking the wrong angle and nearly tripping over himself as he pursued Kenyan Drake into the end zone on the final play of the game at Hard Rock Stadium (and had the Pats made a tackle and won that game, they’d be hosting the Chiefs this Sunday).
• Another week, another road loss, 17-10, to Pittsburgh at Heinz Field in a game in which quarterback Tom Brady looked every day of his 41 years of age.
Add it all up and that’s losses to five teams, all of whom have been watching the playoffs from afar.
All of that is in the past, however. All that matters now is this Sunday at 6:40 p.m.
“It comes down to how we play this week,” Patriots offensive coordinator-quarterbacks coach Josh McDaniels, who called an outstanding game this past Sunday, said in a conference call on Monday. “It doesn’t matter any other week that we’ve played, the last game that we played them or there or some other place on the road. What matters is how our team this week can prepare and then go out and perform and execute on Sunday night and hopefully we can go out there and play our best game of the year.”
It’s a small sample size, but history shows that Bill Belichick’s Patriots teams haven’t played their best football at Arrowhead, going 1-2 there and most recently getting humiliated, 41-14, in a Monday night game on Sept. 29, 2014 (the “we’re on to Cincinnati” game). Brady has thrown twice as many interceptions (six) as touchdown passes (three) in the three games he’s played there in his career.
The Patriots have also lost the last three AFC Championship games they've played on the road, falling at Indianapolis in 2006 and at Denver in 2013 and 2015.
Lacking a finishing kick: On the whole it was an absolutely overpowering performance, but Belichick made it a point to say on Monday that his team's win over the Chargers wasn’t perfect.
“I think overall, with a few exceptions on defense, we played a pretty solid game for three quarters,” said Belichick, “(but) we didn’t finish the game particularly well in area.”
After building a commanding 35-7 halftime lead and still very much in control at 38-14 after three, the Patriots coasted in to their 41-28 win.
Forty reasons for concern: No need to remind Steve Belichick, the Patriots' safeties coach, of the team's Oct. 14 game with the Chiefs in Foxboro.
"They scored 40 points on us last time," the younger Belichick said, "so we have our work cut out for us."
Former Tiger-Cat's a Pat: Continuing to sign players to reserve/future contracts, the Patriots have added offensive tackle Ryker Mathews, who played 26 games for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats over the course of the 2017 and 2018 CFL seasons.