There were a lot of unhappy faces following Kansas City’s 27-24 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship on Sunday. During his postgame press conference, Chiefs wide receiver Mecole Hardman began by describing what kind of mood the locker room was in following the loss.
“Obviously, everybody’s disappointed in what’s going on,” he began with a sorrowful tone. “I mean, I think you know what kind of mood we’re going to be in; it’s not a happy mood. We’re just disappointed in what we did, what we showed out there, and just something we got to learn from and try to get better on coming into next year,” he said.
It’s easy to understand the sour mood following the kind of game the Chiefs had that put their season to an abrupt end. The Chiefs began the AFC title game, clicking on all cylinders, which led to a 21-3 lead to start the first half following a three-yard touchdown that Hardman scored late in the second quarter. Unfortunately, the momentum began to favor the Bengals throughout the second half. Hardman was asked what led to the struggles against Cincinnati’s defense after coming out of the locker room at halftime.
“I just feel like we got to execute better, we got to put points on the board, we can’t just be having three and outs and putting our defense in bad situations,” he reflected. “We just got to execute on an offensive standpoint. I mean, we scored three points total in the second half, so I think that it’s on us to be better in certain situations and key situations, and getting the ball down the field, and getting first downs, and trying to get some points on the board, [but we] didn’t do that in the second half,” he explained.
From a defensive standpoint, Cincinnati went from allowing Kansas City to score three touchdowns in the first half to keeping them out of the end zone entirely. The media asked Hardman if the Bengals made any adjustments or did anything different after halftime.
“No, they didn’t have anything different honestly, I think they might have switched up on some calls or switched up some little things to certain formations, but I think they were still with their game plan,” Hardman answered. “I think they were making better plays than we were. I think they came out and played a great game, and we can do nothing but tip our hats to them and just put the blame on ourselves,” he said.
One of the missed opportunities the Chiefs could have scored additional points was on the final play of the first half, where Kansas City could’ve kicked a field goal but instead called a pass play to Tyreek Hill that got blown up at the two-yard line by the Bengal defense. Hardman was asked about the team’s attitude going into the locker room after leaving guaranteed points on the field.
“[Just if] we get the ball back, let’s go out and try to score,” he said. “Let’s put some pressure on them, and let’s go out there and try to execute. I mean, we were all in good moods. We knew the game wasn’t over. We were just trying to do things like that, but you saw how that went.”
Much like the game from Week 17, the Bengals clawed their way back against the Chiefs while their offense struggled. Typically, it’s Kansas City that pulls off the comeback in most situations; that being said, Hardman was asked what it was like to be the team that got the rug taken out from under them this time around.
“Like I say, we got to tip our hat to them,” he said. “They came out, and they played well. We got to put the blame on ourselves for not executing as we should. But hats off to them; they played a hell of a game.”
Hardman finished the AFC Championship with three catches for 52 yards and one touchdown, and he also had two rushes for 18 yards. He ended the 2021 regular season with a career-high 53 receptions for 693 yards, two receiving touchdowns, and eight carries for 46 rushing yards. He also registered eight catches for 121 and a score in three postseason games this year.
