Bengals Freeze Bills

Joe Burrow threw two touchdown passes, Cincinnati’s defense swarmed Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen on a snow-slicked field and the Bengals advanced to their second straight AFC championship game with a 27-10 win over the Bills on Sunday.

Burrow completed his first nine passes for 105 yards while leading Cincinnati to a 14-0 lead after their first two possessions. Ja’Marr Chase opened the scoring with a 28-yard TD catch, followed by Burrow’s 15-yard TD throw to Hayden Hurst eight minutes later. Joe Mixon scored on a one-yard run, and Evan McPherson hit field goals from 20 and 28 yards in a game the Bengals never trailed.

“Domination from start to finish,” Burrow said after the game. “That’s what we expected. Job’s not finished.”

The Bengals advanced to consecutive AFC championship games for the first time in franchise history, and will again travel to play the Kansas City Chiefs. The Bengals beat the Chiefs 27-24 to advance to last year’s Super Bowl, which they lost to the Los Angeles Rams.

The Bengals have won the past three meetings against Kansas City, including a 27-24 victory last month. The Chiefs are making their fifth straight appearance in the AFC championship game following a 27-20 win over Jacksonville on Saturday.

“It’s going to be a fun one,” said Burrow, who went 23 of 36 for 242 yards. “Two of the top guys in the league, two of the top teams in the league, great defenses, great overall teams, great coaches.”

The Bills’ playoff run ends in the divisional round for a second straight season, after their 42-36 overtime loss to Kansas City last year.

“We were expecting their best punch and they came out and punched us,” Allen said.

Damar Hamlin’s inspirational presence while watching the game from an endzone suite was not enough to spark the Bills in a rematch of a regular-season game that was canceled on 2 January when the Bills safety went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated on the field in Cincinnati.

Had Buffalo defeated Cincinnati, the AFC championship would have been held at Atlanta next weekend because the Bills (13-3) finished the season a half-game behind the Chiefs (14-3) after their game against Cincinnati was canceled.