It is amazing to consider that Sunday’s AFC Championship game marked Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones’ 13th postseason appearance, and he didn’t have a single sack in his first 12 playoff performances. This included Kansas City’s win over the 49ers in Super Bowl LV — a Jones game so dominant, it could be argued (as I did) that he should have been named the gane’s Most Valuable Player. You can completely disrupt an offense without sacks, and Jones has done it more often than most.
That said, when Jones finally broke his sack drought against the Bengals on Sunday, he did it with authority. Jones had two sacks, and he also had three quarterback hits and five quarterback hurries. Cincinnati’s injury-ravaged offensive line, which looked impressively solid against the Bills in the divisional round, had no shot of keeping Jones at bay. Nor did the rest of Kansas City’s defensive line fail to eat. Joe Burrow was pressured on 21 of his 49 dropbacks. Burrow took five sacks, and under pressure, he completed just five passes on 13 attempts for 81 yards, no touchdowns, both of his interceptions, and a passer rating of 20.5.
