Patriots Stun Chiefs

The New England Patriots had played the lack-of-respect card. Quarterback Tom Brady had declared publicly that everyone thought they stunk, to paraphrase it kindly, and couldn’t win any games. They had to take their dynasty, which hasn’t always traveled so well at this time of the year, on the road.

But they are still the Patriots. And now the Patriots are back where they almost always show they belong. They advanced to yet another Super Bowl by outlasting the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs, 37-31, in overtime Sunday evening in the AFC championship game.

“The odds were stacked against us,” Brady said Sunday night. “And it hasn’t been that way for us for a while. It certainly was for us this year. We started off so slow. . . . The last four games have been our best games.”

The Patriots will meet the Los Angeles Rams on Feb. 3 in Atlanta in their ninth Super Bowl appearance with Brady as their quarterback and Bill Belichick as their coach. They will be seeking their sixth Super Bowl triumph in that span.

“A victory on the road [in the] AFC championship game is one of my sweeter victories, definitely, in my career,” Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski said.

Running back Rex Burkhead’s two-yard touchdown run 4:52 into overtime won it for the Patriots. That came after they quieted the NFL’s highest-scoring offense and kept the league’s likely MVP in check for a half, then traded touchdowns with the Chiefs and their magnificent second-year quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, down the stretch.

“I think when you’ve got 70,000 people cheering against you, it’s pretty sweet when you win on the road,” Brady said. “And it’s a hard thing to do in the NFL. It’s certainly a hard thing to do against the first-ranked team in the conference who’s been playing great all year and certainly played well at home. We knew it was going to take a lot.”

Postseason victories on the road have been scarce for the Patriots. They entered this game 3-4 in playoff games on the road with Belichick and Brady and didn’t have a postseason victory away from home since 2007.

Their performance Sunday wasn’t flawless. Brady threw two interceptions. Wide receiver Julian Edelman came close to muffing a punt but was saved by an instant replay review that overturned a Chiefs recovery, and he had a Brady pass clank off his hands for an interception.

But the Patriots were good enough. They controlled the first half. They had leads of 14-0 at halftime and 17-7 into the fourth quarter. They fell behind 21-17 on Mahomes’s third touchdown pass of the game. The Patriots reclaimed the lead with a little more than 31/2 minutes to play in regulation on a 10-yard touchdown run by running back Sony Michel on a fourth-and-one play. The Chiefs moved in front 28-24 on a touchdown run by Damien Williams with 2:03 remaining.

Burkhead’s four-yard touchdown gave the Patriots the lead again with 39 seconds to go. The Chiefs forced overtime with a 39-yard field goal by kicker Harrison Butker with eight seconds left. But the Patriots got the ball first in overtime and drove, virtually unimpeded, to the winning touchdown.

“We just knew we had to go down and score,” Gronkowski said of the overtime possession. “We were saying on the sideline: ‘Let’s just go down and end this now. Let’s make some plays. Everyone step up.’ ”

That’s precisely what the Patriots did in denying the Chiefs a Super Bowl trip.

“You’re doing everything you can to get to the Super Bowl and to win it,” Mahomes said. “And for this opportunity to fall short, I mean, it’s going to hurt. . . . You have to go through that. But at the same time, when you come back and look at the bigger picture, you know that you can build off this and use this feeling as motivation to come back and win next time.”

The Chiefs had never been shut out in the first half of a home game with Andy Reid as their coach — until Sunday. The Patriots were dominant in the half, taking a 14-0 lead while holding the ball for more than 21 minutes and outgaining the Chiefs 245 yards to 32.

Michel had an opening-drive touchdown run, and Brady threw a touchdown pass to wide receiver Phillip Dorsett in the final minute of the half. The lead could have been bigger if Brady had not thrown an end zone interception earlier in the second quarter. But Mahomes was off his game, overthrowing Williams when the running back was wide open for what should have been a second-quarter touchdown.

Mahomes got moving in the second half. He threw a third-quarter touchdown pass to tight end Travis Kelce. The Chiefs rolled to 24 fourth-quarter points. But the Patriots remained the Patriots, and they are headed to the Super Bowl for a third straight season and for the fourth time in five years.“It’s a great feeling,” Brady said. “We’ve overcome a lot this year, down but not out. We found a way to play our best the last four games. . . . We’re going to need one more great game. Great way to end it. That was probably as excited as I’ve been in a long time.”