Who do Chiefs play next in NFL playoffs after beating Jaguars?

The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars to advance to the AFC Championship.

Another year, another trip to the AFC Championship Game for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Although the Jacksonville Jaguars kept it close, Kansas City proved too much offensively for Trevor Lawrence and company to keep pace. The Chiefs saw star quarterback Patrick Mahomes suffer an ankle injury, but he persevered anyway and his team prevailed.

As the Chiefs await the other AFC Divisional Round game being played on Sunday afternoon, who, and where, are they going to play?

The Chiefs will play either the Buffalo Bills or the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game, either home at Arrowhead or … at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta…

Who are the Kansas City Chiefs playing in the AFC Championship Game?

With this being the first Divisional Round game in the books, the Chiefs will have to wait another day to see who they will play. Obviously, they are going to face the winner of the other AFC Divisional Round game between the Bengals and Bills, but this is where it gets interesting. It has everything to do with the Bills at Bengals Monday night game a few weeks ago getting canceled…

Should the No. 3-seeded Bengals upset the No. 2-seeded Bills in Orchard Park, then the 2022 AFC Championship Game will be played at Arrowhead Stadium in a repeat of last year’s title bout. However, should the Bills hold serve and beat the Bengals, both Kansas City and Buffalo will have to make the trek south to Atlanta to play a neutral-site conference championship game.

Since the Bills did not play a 17th regular-season game, it prevented Buffalo from potentially having home-field advantage in the AFC. This is because the Bills beat the Chiefs in their meeting earlier this season. So the Bills finished half a game back of the Chiefs in the AFC standings at regular season’s end. This is why the potential title bout is being played at a neutral-site location.

The idea of playing conference title bouts at neutral-site locations is a new and controversial development made by the NFL. Financially, it makes sense, but a team potentially clinching a trip to the Super Bowl at home is what makes conference championship weekend so special. Sadly, the NFL is so going to go in this direction at some point permanently, whether we like it or not…

So … the Chiefs will either play the Bengals at Arrowhead next or the Bills down in the Dirty South.