After a tough regular season, Chiefs’ Harrison Butker delivers in the playoffs... again

Harrison Butker has endured the most difficult of his six NFL seasons. He suffered an ankle injury in the opener, missed games for the first time in his career and also finished the regular season with his lowest accuracy number — combined field goals and extra points.

But when he was needed most, in the playoffs’ biggest game with a trip to the Super Bowl at stake, Butker delivered Sunday night.

His 45-yard field goal with eight seconds remaining was the game-winner in the Chiefs’ 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead.

“I try to treat every kick like a big kick,” Butker said. “Extra points, first-quarter field goals, those are all big kicks to me. So when I do get to that big moment it’s the same. I try to trick my mind in that regard.”

But Butker couldn’t trick the conditions. The wind chill was 10 degrees at kickoff and lower some three hours later. The wind was swirling. Flags that fly atop the goal posts and ones above the stadium seemed to be blowing in different directions.

“What do you think, Tommy?” Butker asked of his holder, punter Tommy Townsend, who was standing at the next locker after the game. “A little in the face and left to right. I thought the wind was worse than what the flags were showing.”

Butker has plenty of leg for a 45-yard attempt. He booted a club-record 62-yarder this season, a highlight in a season in which he went 18 for 24 on field goals and missed three extra points.

But the conditions Sunday presented a challenge.

“I wasn’t sure if the ball was going to have enough distance,” Butker said. “I hit it well. But it was just kind of floating up in the air. I’m glad it went over.”

Butker was so unsure of the kick that, even as Townsend started embracing him, Butker wasn’t sure the kick was good.

The field goal was set up by a couple of big plays in the game’s previous minutes. The Bengals got the ball with 2:30 remaining and moved to their 35. But on third down, Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones came up with his second — and the team’s fifth — sack of the day to end the drive.

A 29-yard punt return by Skyy Moore gave the Chiefs possession at their 47 with 30 seconds remaining. On third and 4, Patrick Mahomes scrambled for five yards to the Bengals’ 42 and was shoved to the ground after he went out of bounds. The resulting penalty on the Bengals tacked on an additional 15 yards.

Butker needed that. Had the ball not advanced past the 42, a 59-yard attempt would have been a shaky proposition.

“In warm-ups, I was dropping 55-yarders short going in that direction,” Butker said.

But the penalty put the ball at the 27. Butker had already made field goals of 43 and 24 yards. He had been warming up ever since the Chiefs got the ball.

And there is this: Since joining the Chiefs, he has been money in the biggest moments.

In the 2018 AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots, Butker drilled a 39-yarder with eight seconds remaining to send the game to overtime.

The Chiefs’ dramatic 2021 Divisional Round victory in overtime against the Buffalo Bills doesn’t happen unless Butker nails a 49-yarder on the final play of regulation.

And he sent last year’s AFC title game into overtime with a 44-yard kick on the final play of regulation in a game the Chiefs eventually lost.

“As a kicker, you dream about those moments,” Butker said. “That’s what everyone remembers, those big kicks.”