Chiefs pass-rusher Frank Clark tempted fate.
But then he and his teammates backed it up.
After providing not just material, but the whole bulletin board by saying Titans running back Derrick Henry was “not hard to hit” last week, the Chiefs responded by limiting Henry to 69 yards on 19 carries.
“‘Cause we’re the best defense in the world right now,” Clark said, via NFL.com. “They come in here, they say they’re gonna run the ball. I know exactly what they were gonna do, you watching that film, you know what they’re going to do. . . . Over 200 yards each game. I knew damn well we wasn’t going to win the game if we let that happen.
“They come in here, he runs for 70 yards, they call him the best rusher in the league. We sendin’ his a-- home early.”
While Clark’s numbers were slightly off, they did do a nice job. Henry had rushed for 211, 182, and 195 yards in his last three games, so there was no reason to expect that kind of discrepancy.
The Chiefs were seventh from the bottom in the league in run defense this year, so they had shown nothing like the work they put in Sunday, which helped them make a Super Bowl.