The Kansas City Chiefs are used to facing the Cincinnati Bengals later in the regular season, but after Joe Burrow missed last year with a season-ending wrist injury, the NFL didn’t want to take a chance on key players missing this game. And so here we are, in Week 2, and the Chiefs, who have won two consecutive Super Bowls, are hosting the Bengals.
Chiefs fans have become accustomed to watching their team play against the Bengals as this has become one of the hottest rivalries in the NFL over the past two years. These teams played in the AFC Championship Game two years in a row, with the Bengals winning the first game and Kansas City winning the second.
Since these two teams have faced each other in important games, Jim Nantz and Tony Romo are always the ones doing the commentating. They are the top guys at CBS, so when you hear them commentating on your team’s game, you know it’s one of the best matchups.
The commentators set the tone for the game because they tell us what they see and also get excited (sometimes too excited if it’s Romo) when big things happen. The referees can also set the tone for the game because they can call penalties whenever they see fit. Sometimes we have referees who like to show flags and sometimes we have referees who let the players play.
We all knew this would be the team to call this game because it’s always this team when it’s Chiefs vs. Bengals. Every time these two teams have met during the Joe Burrow, Nantz, Romo and Wolfson have been on the phone. No surprises here.
H3: Chief Referee: Alex Kemp
Kemp has been head referee since 2014 and refereed a Chiefs game for the first time three weeks into the season. The Chiefs won that game.
Last year, Kemp was the head referee for a Chiefs game in Week 4 when they narrowly escaped MetLife Stadium with a win over the Jets. He refereed a Bengals game when Cincinnati hosted the Bills in Week 9.
In other words, the Chiefs and Bengals were leading 1-0 when Kemp was the head referee in their games. Something has to go wrong in this matchup.
