SUNDAY’S WINNERS: THE RAMS AND … THE BENGALS?

By STEVE KING

You can go anywhere and get a position-by-position, scheme vs. scheme and coach vs. breakdown of today’s two games on Conference Championship Sunday.

Read as many of them as you like, as many as you deem to be important, relevant and credible.

You will not any of that here.

This, then, will be a short story about time.

That is, whose time is it? Whose time is it to win these games and advance to the Super Bowl in two weeks?

In the AFC, with Cincinnati visiting Kansas City, is it the Bengals’ time, or is it the Chiefs’ time?

And in the NFC, with Los Angeles hosting San Francisco, is it the Rams’ time, or is it the 49ers’ time?

Hmmm.

Both matches are intriguing — greatly so — in regards to time, and timing, but the one that stands out more — again, greatly so, and as such the greater of the greats — is in the AFC.

By all accounts, the Chiefs, with the offense in offense led by the best quarterback in football in Patrick Mahomes, should win. In this day and age, the best quarterbacks and the best offenses win — almost all the time.

And the Chiefs, after winning the Super Bowl two years ago and then getting obliterated in the big game last season, are hungry and ripe to get back there and win it again.

But it’s more the right time for the Bengals, that team of destiny I’ve mentioned any number of times in this space. They will win — or at least, are set up to win — because of that.

So, I am picking them, but if they fail to jump through this window of opportunity, then they will rue the day for a long time. Because next year, they will find success harder to come by. The magic will be gone.

It will be the Chiefs’ time next season — perhaps. We have to wait and see.

In the NFC, it’s clear. The Rams were built for, and quarterback Matthew Stafford was acquired for, this moment. This is the chance for all of that to be validated, and for Stafford to prove he can win big games, something he never did in Detroit.

It is not the 49ers’ time, but it will be soon once they distance themselves from a garden-variety quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo.

We’ll know by the 11 o’clock news tonight if the Bengals and Rams seized the moment.

I, for one, hope they do.

Theirs are good stories, and it would make for a great Super Bowl.