Bengals’ Apple: Chiefs had a ‘tell,’ so Cincy knew what was coming in the second half

One reason the Chiefs’ 27-24 overtime loss to the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game was so difficult for KC fans to watch was the poor play of the offense in the second half.

The Chiefs had 375 yards of total offense in the game, but 292 came in the first half. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw an interception in the second half and again in overtime and threw for just 55 yards after halftime.

Bengals cornerback Eli Apple said in an interview on GoLongTD.com that the Chiefs were pressing after not scoring on the final possession of the first half. And in the second half, they had a “tell” that let the Bengals know before the snap how they would be attacked.

When the Chiefs had to punt for the first time on their opening possession of the third quarter, Apple said he could feel momentum shifting.

“I was like, All right now, they’re going to feel like, ‘Oh (shoot). We made a mistake.’ And they’d start pressing. And they did,” Apple told Tyler Dunne.

“They got cocky. They wanted to pass. They wanted Mahomes to have the ball in his hands to get rid of us. We knew the concepts that were coming at us. Before the snap, we had a tell of what they were going to do, and then it was about beating their guys to that spot and competing for the ball. And our D-Line played really great in making sure he wasn’t comfortable in the pocket when he was trying to scramble and stuff. They’re one of those teams that knows what they want to do. Especially when they’re in dropback mode. There’s only so many things they can do with different sets. It’s just about their athletes being fast and our athletes being fast, too. Who can keep up with who?”

A tell is a poker term. It means when one player has some sort of sign that gives away the strength of his or her hand to the other poker players.

Apple also said the Chiefs celebrations as they took a 21-3 lead fired up the Bengals defense. In particular, Apple mentioned Tyreek Hill’s “trash talking” and Mecole Hardman’s touchdown dance. That could explain why Apple went on Twitter after the game and made fun of Hill and later Hardman.

“Any time anybody does that, it makes you mad as a defense,” Apple said. “It makes you want to clean up stuff and make sure they don’t do that anymore. And they didn’t. After the touchdown they got on me, when I didn’t run to make that play on the pick — the pick-flat play — ‘17’ started hitting the ‘quan.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s over. We can’t let that happen anymore.’”

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