So look, the NFL is an insane and ridiculously complicated sport.

It's the kind of sport where you can watch it for 20 straight weeks, all that building up to yesterday's conference championship games.

Only to find yourself completely confused by at least a handful of things that you've just never seen before.

And so today, with the Chiefs finally outlasting the Bengals as he just hurried, and the Eagles beating the Niners to within an inch of their 6th string border bags.

We ask our friend Alex Smith, a 16 year NFL veteran, to explain what really happened here, and why this was the most impressive version of Patrick Mahomes.

Alex is old back up, that he has ever seen.

I'm Pablo Torre, it's Monday, January 30th.

And this is ESPN Daily.

So Alex Smith, we're here, we just watched the AFC championship game, the Chiefs won somehow 23 to 20.

They reclaimed the title, they broke the streak of losing against the Bengals.

Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes, both looked broken and exhausted by the end of this.

You know both of these guys, you've interviewed them, you've obviously played with Patrick before.

What do you think it's like to be them right now? What's going through their minds?

Man, I mean, well, they're obviously in completely different places.

Patrick's on Cloud 9.

This team's played four times in the last couple of years, and every game has been decided by three points.

I mean, these two teams and coaching staffs are so evenly matched and know each other so well.

And the last couple of AFC championship games remind me of these rocky movies where the Chiefs have come out to these big leads,

like just slug the Bengals and then all of a sudden they like, they don't manage to go down,

they like keep their fee and then all of a sudden they make a couple play, they land a couple punches and like,

all of a sudden now we're in this bra in the second half.

And then again, it comes down to one play here or there and that's the difference.

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