The Kansas City Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl again.
The NFL’s dominant team of the past few years defeated the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 in Baltimore on Sunday, nabbing the AFC championship trophy and securing the team’s fourth Super Bowl berth since 2020.
The Chiefs’ opponents in the Feb. 11 Super Bowl will be determined by day’s end when the NFC championship between the Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers is decided. That game, airing on Fox, begins at 3:30 p.m. PT at the 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
The Chiefs’ march to Super Bowl LVIII this year received heightened attention in pop culture after it emerged last fall that the team’s veteran tight end Travis Kelce is dating megastar Taylor Swift. Swift’s presence as a spectator at Chiefs games this season has generated enormous buzz for the league and promises to bring even more viewers to the Super Bowl — assuming Swift attends the big game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The Super Bowl, to air on CBS and its sibling streamer Paramount+, is reliably the most-watched telecast of the year in the U.S.
The Chiefs are hoping to score back-to-back Super Bowl wins after taking the NFL’s top prize in 2023, as well as in 2020. A repeat victory for the team would mark the first such feat since the New England Patriots pulled it off in 2004 (beating the Carolina Panthers) and 2005 (beating the Philadelphia Eagles). In 2021, the Chiefs lost the championship bout 31-9 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At last year’s Super Bowl, the Chiefs defeated the Eagles 38-35; in 2020, the Chiefs toppled the 49ers 31-20.
Sunday’s AFC victory bolsters the future Hall-of-Famer reputation of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who has transformed the team’s fortunes since joining the squad in 2018.
Playing at home, the Ravens had been angling to clinch the team’s first Super Bowl berth since 2013. That year, Baltimore beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-41.
(Pictured: Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce during Sunday’s AFC championship game at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium)