When you play the Kansas City Chiefs, there are two players you must pay attention to on every single snap. On offense, it’s tight end Travis Kelce. On defense, it’s defensive lineman Chris Jones. The Cincinnati Bengals did not do this nearly enough to Jones in the first half of the AFC Championship game, and they very much paid for it.
Jones demands frequent double-teams because he has a near-unmatched combination of power, quickness, and technique. The Bengals were already aware of this, because in their 27-24 Week 13 win over Kansas City in Week 13, they doubled Jones on 25 of his 61 defensive snaps.
Cincinnati’s misbegotten strategy to put one guy on Jones first made itself clear with 7:07 left in the first quarter. Left guard Max Scharping was solo on Jones while center Ted Karras was looking for help over the middle of the line, and that was just not going to work the way the Bengals wanted it to.
First career postseason sack for #Chiefs Chris Jones pic.twitter.com/aY8gXmypsQ
— Aaron Ladd (@aaronladd0) January 30, 2023
And then, with eight seconds left in the first half, and the Bengals down 13-3, Jones just demolished everybody to force Joe Burrow to throw the ball away.
Watch Chris Jones on this last pass of the first half. Good lord. pic.twitter.com/Wemg1HTi2C
— Jesse Newell (@jessenewell) January 30, 2023
It’s amazing that the first-quarter sack was Jones’ first in 14 postseason games and two Super Bowls. Not that it’s made much of a different on his impact on the field. He had a more than legitimate case to be named Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl LIV, and Jones has obviously not lost a single step since then.
