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Ivis AburtoESPN Digital
When no one was waiting for him, maybe not himself, Chad Henne had to enter the field and give him a reason to celebrate the fans of the Kansas City bosses who, at the same time, had their souls on a wire due to the injury on who left Patrick Mahomes out of the Divisional Round game against the Cleveland Browns.
Henne, who played backup for most of his 11-year career in the NFL, did just enough to secure Kansas City’s third consecutive AFC championship game after defeating the Browns 22-2. 17. .
Henne came into play after Muhammad suffered a concussion due to a third approach and a midfield run with 7:44 left and the Chiefs with 19-10 on the scoreboard.
Mahomes did not get the first and 10 in the action in which he was injured and in the next play, the fourth and one, Henne gave the ball to Darrell Williams, who had 12 meters in his career and kept alive the offensive of the bosses.
Henne threw his first pass to the fourth offensive play, but it was incomplete, then hit a five-yard touchdown run with Travis Kelce to set up Harrison Butker’s 33-yard goal, which was the key to victory. to Kansas City because he drove them away. five points from Cleveland.
If the Chiefs didn’t get those three points, the Browns, who scored on their next offensive unit and intercepted a bad pass from Henne after that, might not have felt the need and pressure to score a touchdown on their last unit. , in which a gap. outfield would have been enough to tie the score and force the bosses to play more without Mohammed.
For his part, Browns’ defense, which pressed Muhammad in just three of his 31 plays, did the right thing when Henne came into play and from the start it was after the bosses came on.
Cleveland threw Henne in four of the 10 designed pass games and Henne took advantage of one of those actions to escape the pressure, get out of pocket and run 13 yards on the third and 14th conversion. preceded them in the fourth and centimeters with which Henne got the victory of Kansas City with 1:14 to play.
Henne’s dirty work in preserving the victory of the bosses was also reflected in the conversion to the fourth centimeter that ensured the victory of Kansas City.
The five-meter pitch he threw at Tyreek Hill is only the third in 15 years in a 4-inch situation in two minutes of the fourth period, in the Shotgun team and led by his team.
Deshaun Watson played the other two times that a defender made a good conversion of four and an inch in this context, first in week 6 of the current season against Tennessee and in week 17 of the 2018 season, against Jacksonville.
When coach Andy Reid decided to rest several starters in Week 17, including Muhammad, with the first AFC seed already secured and named Henne as the starting defender for the final game of the regular season, the Chiefs created the hashtag #HenneThingIs Possible, an English word game that translates into Spanish as “Anything is possible” and Henne made it happen at the height of the tension for Kansas City.
ESPN statistics and information contributed to this report.