Chiefs vs. Bengals score: Harrison Butker’s last-second field goal sends Kansas City to Super Bowl LVII

The Kansas City Chiefs have avenged their AFC Championship loss of a year ago and finally got into the win column against Joe Burrow and the Bengals, defeating Cincinnati, 23-20, in the conference title game Sunday to advance to Super Bowl LVII. 

Harrison Butker was able to kick the 45-yard game-winning field goal after Patrick Mahomes and the offense moved the ball 39 yards down the field with less than 30 second left in regulation. The key play on that drive came on a third-and-4 situation from the Cincinnati 47-yard line. Mahomes scrambled up the right side of the field for five yards and was hit out of bounds, which drew an unnecessary roughness penalty to put them within Butker’s range and send them to the Super Bowl. 

This game was really a tale of two halves, with the first primarily owned by Kansas City. The Bengals had an uncharacteristically slow start, particularly in the first quarter when they registered zero total yards of offense. All the while, the Chiefs were moving the ball well and jumped out to a 13-6 lead thanks in large part to a 14-yard touchdown to Travis Kelce late in the second quarter. However, Cincinnati did show some signs of life in the final minutes of that first half, moving 90 yards in just over two minutes to boot a field goal before the break to cut the lead to a touchdown. They’d knot the game at 13 on their first drive of the second half, and that would begin a back-and-forth final two quarters between these two rivals. 

Mahomes and the Chiefs offense responded to that Cincy score with an 11-play, 77-yard touchdown drive of their own to retake the lead. A fumble by Mahomes on their subsequent drive, however, breathed more life into the Bengals, who’d tie the game at 20 on a drive headlined by a monumental fourth-and-6 conversation by Joe Burrow to Ja’Marr Chase. 

That score stood at 20 for the bulk of the fourth quarter until Kansas City’s defense was able to forced a punt with less than a minute in regulation, and the offense took care of the rest to clinch their spot in the Super Bowl. 

From here, the Chiefs will travel to Arizona, where they’ll face the Philadelphia Eagles, who defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship earlier Sunday. Super Bowl LVII will kick off at 6:30 p.m. ET from State Farm Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 12.