The Chiefs proved they win with physicality AND finesse to make the Super Bowl

Going into the AFC Championship, it was easy to view Titans vs. Chiefs as power vs. finesse. The Titans grind their opponents into a fine paste. The Chiefs utilize absolutely lethal speed. But when the two met on Sunday, it was Kansas City who came out with the harder hits, the biggest stops, and a trip to the Super Bowl with the 35-24 victory.

Derrick Henry, the bruising power back who the Titans rode through the Patriots and Ravens, was effective for the first couple drives, until the Chiefs found a way to shut him down. The way to do that? Stack the box and hope Ryan Tannehill didn’t burn them for it.

Tannehill didn’t, and that was emblematic of the game Kansas City played, especially on defense. Whether they play the 49ers or Packers next, the Chiefs are going to Miami. And they’re going in having proven they can be as physical as they need to be.

Let’s break down all the ways the Chiefs were better at being the Titans than the Titans were.

It wasn’t just that the Chiefs sold out to stop Henry — they were all about laying big hits and being the more physical team from the onset. Observe this Tyrann Mathieu hit in the open field in the second quarter:

Mathieu in particular was all over the field in the game. He led the Chiefs with nine tackles and a tackle for loss on the day, and even broke up a pair of Tannehill passes on the final drive when the Titans were trying to come back. He was hardly the only one, though.

You don’t see running quarterbacks take too many hits, but Chiefs safety Daniel Sorensen was happy to deliver one to Tannehill when he neglected to slide at the end of his run:

That was a third-down play, and the Titans were forced to punt after the tackle from Sorensen.

It wasn’t just on defense, either. The Chiefs’ offense relies heavily on speed, but they need some punishing blocking to spring those guys. They certainly got a heavy dose of that on Sunday. One name that popped up was tight end Blake Bell, who laid multiple huge blocks on a single play.

Bell is a beast on this modest gain, hitting three different players, finishing off the third in absolutely disrespectful fashion.

The Titans scored on three of their four first-half possessions, but the one they failed on saw first- and second-down runs from Henry stopped for no gain. But it was a different Henry-focused drive that was most impressive.

Facing a first-and-5 from their own 37-yard-line midway through the third quarter, the Titans did the obvious: they ran it with Henry. With the help of a penalty for having too many men on the field by the Chiefs, it made perfect sense for the Titans to play conservatively and run Henry. Five yards is nothing compared to what he had been doing — he was averaging 5.9 yards per carry in the playoffs before Sunday’s game.

It didn’t work out as planned.

The Titans were ultimately called on a holding penalty that pushed them back further on that third down, but the Chiefs got the stop without it.

What was remarkable about this series was that the Chiefs were running, basically, a goal-line defense. At mid-field. So many things can go wrong in that situation, but the Chiefs knew the Titans would run it, and they knew they needed the extra guys to make the stop.

They loaded up the box and made the stop, scoring a touchdown on their ensuing possession to take a 28-17 lead. Henry would go on to finish the game with 69 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries, his lowest total since a Week 9 game against the Panthers.

The Chiefs were the normal Chiefs for a lot of Sunday’s game. Mahomes threw for three touchdowns and had a brilliant rushing touchdown earlier in the game. Sammy Watkins and Tyreek Hill combined for 12 catches, 181 yards and three touchdowns receiving.

But even while they were being their vintage selves, they were still establishing their own brand of physicality. They put down devastating hits when they needed to, and now they’re about to play in their first Super Bowl in 50 years. Both the 49ers and Packers are capable of controlling the pace of football games, and the Chiefs will need to bring more of what they brought today to be crowned this year’s Super Bowl champions.