Over the weekend the Kansas City Chiefs booked their ticket to the AFC title game with a 23-14 win over the Houston Texans.
Star tight end Travis Kelce led the way with seven receptions for 117 yards and a touchdown. Following his standout performance, he received praise from quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who revealed the playoff bye and rest in the final week of the regular season likely helped the aging tight end.
“It helped Travis a ton just because he’s an older guy and he plays a very, very tough position on the body,” Mahomes said. “It’s not like he’s just sitting on the couch. He’s working out and kind of just taking those reps off, so for him it’s just been getting himself ready to go. We’ve been practicing, we’ve been working at practice and then we go out there and he plays fast and takes his game to a new level.”
While the Chiefs shift their attention to the Buffalo Bills, who took down the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night, ESPN made a major announcement regarding the team’s divisional showdown against the Texans.
“ESPN’s 2025 NFL Divisional Round presentation delivered a record-breaking audience across ESPN platforms, as the Houston Texans at the Kansas City Chiefs (Saturday, Jan. 18, 4:30 p.m. ET) is the company’s most-watched NFL game of all-time. The 32.7 million viewers surpass each NFL on ESPN game, playoffs and regular season, since 1987 (38 seasons), the first year when the network aired NFL games,” the network said on Monday morning.
ESPN expects the final number to exceed 33 million.
“ESPN’s Texans-Chiefs viewership is expected to surpass 33 million viewers when Nielsen reports the final audience this week. The current viewership of 32.7 million viewers includes the vast majority, but not all audiences from ESPN, ABC and ESPN+,” it said.
Kansas City and Buffalo will square off with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line next Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. EST.
