27 January 2023
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The rivalry is strong between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals.
Toward the end of the Bengals’ AFC Divisional win over the Buffalo Bills, Bengals cornerback Mike Hilton prefaced their trip to Kansas City by calling Arrowhead Stadium ‘Burrowhead’ after Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow.
On Wednesday, Chiefs players said they’ve seen all the trash talk from the Bengals, but they choose to keep their focus on the field.
“Yeah, we just go out there and play football at the end of the day. All that stuff, you can talk throughout the week, but at the end of the day, it’s a football game,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“You have to go out there and play it. So we believe in just going, showing up on Sunday, playing our best football and seeing what happens.”
“I think we all saw it,” safety Justin Reid said. “Those guys are having fun since they won the game, but we’re gonna just let our play on the field speak for us.”
“I’ve been playing this team since I’ve been in the NFL, so it’s nothing new to me,” wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said.
“They’ve always been the ‘rah rah’ team, and they back it up, and that’s what they’ve been doing this whole season,” he added. “So it’s just more so for us, for me, to go out there and just play ball, have fun.”
On Wednesday, Hilton said the name just popped into his head during the game.
“Really just popped up to me on the sideline. I just knew we were going to Kansas City, and it’s Arrowhead, so I thought of my quarterback and called it Burrowhead.”
The pot has already been stirred ahead of the AFC Championship. The game kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in Kansas City.