It's bad enough that Cincinnati Bengals fans had to watch the Kansas City Chiefs clinch another AFC Championship and advance to yet another Super Bowl. It was even worse that the way the Chiefs punched their ticket to Super Bowl LIX was through a player who used to don the orange-and-black stripes.
Samaje Perine, a Bengals running back from 2020 to 2022, signed with the Chiefs in the 2024 offseason and despite not being a game-changer for them during the regular season, helped them secure a 32-29 victory over the Buffalo Bills in Sunday's AFC Championship Game.
The Chiefs had the ball on 3rd-and-9 on the Bills' 35-yard-line and 1:35 remaining in the game. Not converting there would mean the Chiefs either had to kick a long field goal, go for it on fourth down, or punt the ball back to the Bills. Most teams would be too scared to throw the ball in fear that it falls incomplete and stops the clock.
Well, the Chiefs aren't most teams. Patrick Mahomes fired a short pass to Perine, who scurried 17 yards, more than enough for the first down and to ice the game. Seeing the Chiefs clinch another trip to the Super Bowl was bad enough but knowing it was a former Bengal who helped them do it stung even more.
Samaje Perine helped the Chiefs reach the Super Bowl much to Bengals fans' dismay
Bengals fans noticed that it was Perine who helped make this moment possible and weren't happy about it. Some noted that the football gods are cruel while others think the Chiefs dialed up this play for Perine on purpose just to stick it to the Bengals.
While I doubt the Chiefs cared too much about the Bengals in this game, it's hard for Bengals fans not to be upset in this moment. Kansas City clinched another AFC Championship and they managed to put the final nail in the Bills' coffin by using a former member of the Bengals.
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Perine wasn't a superstar during his time in Cincinnati, often playing second fiddle to Joe Mixon (who's now with the Texans), but fans were still bummed when the team let him walk in free agency in 2023. Perine originally signed with the Broncos but only lasted one year there and then joined K.C.
It won't be Perine's first trip to the Super Bowl, as he was a member of the 2021 Bengals squad that reached Super Bowl LVI. He, of course, was who Joe Burrow was targeting on the Bengals' final play of Super Bowl LVI. The ball fell incomplete and the Rams went on to win that game and the title.
Bengals fans keep hoping that eventually the Chiefs' luck will run out and it'll be time for a new team to dominate the AFC. Sadly, that wasn't this year. The 2025 season will be a new year though and maybe the Bengals can find their way back to the playoffs and make the Chiefs nervous again. After all, they've been the only team in recent years to be able to stop K.C. from reaching the Super Bowl, so who's to say they can't do it again?