KANSAS CITY, Mo.— The NFL shifted their highly anticipated game against the Kansas City Chiefs to Frankfurt, Germany in November, so Tyreek Hill and the Miami Dolphins were unable to play them at Arrowhead Stadium.
When the teams compete in a wild-card playoff game, the wide receiver will be playing in Kansas City for the first time since the Chiefs traded him to the Dolphins. In addition to the expected barrage of jeers—Hill has been deliberately trolling the Chiefs on social media since the trade—he will also face wind chills that should be much below zero when kickoff arrives.
We are rivals. “You’ve seen me, I have that fire, and he’s the same way,” said Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback for the Chiefs, who assisted in making Hill a star during his first six seasons in the NFL. That is his greatest quality. While you’re competing to win on the field, you’re still pals off the field and everything. That’s the way things are.
The Chiefs are capable of winning at this time of year, no doubt about it.
The Chiefs will be playing their 15th consecutive home playoff game, excluding three Super Bowl appearances, while the Dolphins are making their first playoffs appearances since 2001. This run of success began on January 15, 2017, just as Hill was finishing up his rookie year and Mahomes hadn’t taken over as the quarterback of one of the most potent offenses in the NFL.
“We play a lot of big games — games on short rest, night games — and having that experience will help,” Mahomes stated. “Many players on this squad have participated in such activities, so we reduce the seeming advantage heading into the playoffs because we’ve played in matches similar to this one. We can be the greatest team we can be by drawing on our experience.”
With one game remaining in the regular season, the Chiefs secured their eighth straight AFC West title. As a result, Mahomes and some of their greatest players were allowed to forego a victory against the Chargers in favor of getting ready for yet another postseason trip.
Conversely, the Dolphins are coming in both metaphorically and physically hobbling.
Coach Mike McDaniel is stuck with a patchwork defense and a piecemeal pass rush due to a wave of late-season injuries, and the Dolphins’ chances of hosting a game this weekend were ruined by back-to-back defeats to Buffalo and Baltimore.
And steer clear of the Midwest’s bitter cold. Miami has lost its last ten games when it has been 40 degrees or less at kickoff, and the Kansas City game is predicted to be among the coldest in NFL history.
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