By Larry Holder, Nate Taylor, Zak Keefer and Richard Deitsch
The Kansas City Chiefs survived the arctic temperatures Saturday and played for another week, defeating the Miami Dolphins 26-7 in an AFC wild-card game at Arrowhead Stadium.
Kansas City will find out its AFC divisional round opponent once the conference's wild-card round ends on Monday.
The temperature at kickoff was minus 4, which NBC said was the fourth coldest game in NFL history, and a wind chill factor of minus 27. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs handled the conditions better than the Dolphins.
Mahomes connected primarily with rookie wideout Rashee Rice, catching eight balls for 130 yards, including an 11-yard touchdown catch. The Chiefs QB threw for 262 yards with a passer rating of 83.6.
Kicker Harrison Butker added four field goals before tailback Isiah Pacheco capped off Miami with a 3-yard TD run in the fourth quarter.
The Dolphins ended their season with consecutive losses to the AFC's top three seeds: Baltimore Ravens in Week 17, Buffalo Bills in Week 18, Chiefs in the wild card round. Miami's once potent offense continued its downward trend toward the end of the season. Tyreek Hill scored the Dolphins' only touchdown on a 53-yard reception in the second quarter.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa completed 20 of 39 passes for 199 yards with one touchdown and one interception, resulting in a passer rating of 63.9
In a strange moment, Mahomes' helmet broke after taking a hit during a quarterback scramble in the third quarter. Part of the front flew onto the field. The quarterback briefly played with a hole in the front of his helmet before officials paused the game so Mahomes could replace the damaged helmet without calling a timeout.
Mahomes is Mahomes again
Over the course of his seven-year career, Mahomes has developed a reputation for being at his best in January and February. Since he became the Chiefs' starter in 2018, every January has started the same way: a playoff run that began at Arrowhead Stadium.
However, Saturday's game brought with it a few new details – the coldest game of his career, his quarterback-specific VICIS helmet broken and a rookie receiver turning in a game-changing performance in his postseason debut. But Mahomes was Mahomes, the most talented quarterback in the league. He once again had an outstanding performance, especially as the Dolphins continued to blitz. Its accuracy was excellent even in windy conditions. He chose the right times to attack and finished the game with only one negative play, an intentional grounding penalty. – Nate Taylor, Chiefs beat writer
Rice is big
One of the strangest parts of the Chiefs' season is the collection of receivers. The six-man group – Kadarius Toney, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson, Skyy Moore, Richie James and Rice – dropped 25 catchable passes in the regular season, the most of any receiver group since the 2012 Jacksonville Jaguars. But the best player The youngest in the group is Rice, the 23-year-old whom the Chiefs traded in the second round of the draft to sign him. Mahomes connected with Rice when the Dolphins blitzed or played zone coverage. Rice's 130 yards is the best ever by a Chiefs rookie receiver in a playoff debut, as he surpassed the 104 yards that Elmo Wright had in a Christmas Day overtime game against the Dolphins in 1971. –Taylor
Kansas City's D hampers Miami again
Led by coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, the Chiefs defense harried the Dolphins for the second time this season – Tagovailoa in the pocket and skill position players on the perimeter. Pass rushers George Karlaftis, Chris Jones and Charles Omenihu put constant pressure on Tagovailoa, who was sacked twice and threw that one interception.
With the exception of Hill's touchdown in his first return to Arrowhead Stadium since joining Kansas City in March 2022, the Chiefs' secondary, led by cornerbacks L'Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie, has been exceptional at covering and attacking the Dolphins' receivers. The first time the Dolphins converted a third-down snap came early in the fourth quarter. Safety Mike Edwards provided the interception and Sneed and McDuffie each finished with two pass breakups. –Taylor
The Dolphins fail again against the major league team
It was a bitter end for a Dolphins team that still had realistic hopes of securing the AFC's No. 1 seed on New Year's Eve. But the late-season doldrums began with a 56-19 loss to the Ravens that day, and Miami never recovered.
That 70-point breakout in September? Any optimism that this year would be different?
That wasn't it.
And now the Dolphins are sliding into another offseason without ever reversing the narrative that has dogged them all year – that they were merely posers and that they couldn't compete with the league's best when it mattered most.
Miami finished 2023 1-6 against playoff teams, including Saturday night's loss. The point difference in these games was -110.
Coach Mike McDaniel won 20 regular-season games in two seasons in Miami and turned the Dolphins into one of the most entertaining teams in football. But the next step? The one where the Dolphins become a real threat in the AFC and not just a fun regular season story?
They're still not there. Still no division titles since 2008. And still just one postseason win since Dan Marino retired in 1999.
McDaniel's teams are 4-10 in games played in December and January over the last two years; in others it is 16-6. — Zak Keefer, national NFL writer
Is Tua the QB of the future?
In the meantime, the biggest offseason question will revolve around the long-term future of Tagovailoa, who struggled all night in the freezing cold and finished with just 171 passing yards. The Dolphins exercised his fifth-year option last spring, keeping him with the team through at least 2024, but beyond that, the franchise must decide whether he's worth the important contract quarterbacks deserve these days. His cap number rises from $9.6 million this year to $23 million in 2024, which will limit general manager Chris Grier's ability to continue to surround him with the talent he's grown accustomed to. –Keefer
What could this game mean for Peacock?
Can sports drive long-term subscriber growth for a streaming product? That's the bet many streamers made, and the main reason Peacock paid the NFL $110 million to televise the first exclusive, live-streamed NFL playoff game.
Peacock currently has 30 million subscribers and a variety of sports properties. How many subs this particular game drives is being closely examined by both Peacock and the NFL. Peacock is currently losing money, as is the case with most streaming companies. Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said last month that the platform would suffer $2.8 billion in losses in 2023. It is hoped that $2.8 billion represents peak losses.
Rick Cordella, the president of NBC Sports who also oversees sports at Peacock, said in an interview that he would judge success first by the quality of the production and whether the technological distribution was smooth and clear.
“Then it's about some metrics: How many subscribers will this bring, how many new subscribers will we have, have we met our own internal traffic goals, have we paid our advertising partners?” Cordella said. “I think the full story won’t be told until months later. How many people churned after a month and how many people stayed and watched other content on Peacock? It may not be a pass-fail grade on Sunday morning. Months later, was this the intended consequence of building the Peacock platform? That’s how we’ll see it.” — Richard Deitsch, sports media reporter
Required reading
(Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)