KC Chiefs’ Omenihu just 1 game from ‘biggest stage’ after missing last Super Bowl
There is no approximating the time since Charles Omenihu suffered a torn ACL — an injury that prevented him from playing in last season’s Super Bowl.
He knows the number of days that have passed since that season-ending knee injury occurred.
“When we play (Sunday, in the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills),” Omenihu said, “it will be 363 days from when I got hurt.”
Omenihu’s devastating injury occurred in the last AFC Championship Game, against the Baltimore Ravens. And it cost Omenihu a shot at meeting his former team, the San Francisco 49ers, for the NFL title just two weeks later. Then he missed the first 11 games of this season as his knee healed.
His return came a bit ahead of schedule, and now Omenihu will get another opportunity to play for a Super Bowl championship when the Chiefs face the Bills at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Kickoff is 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
“It’s a big thing for me personally,” Omenihu said.
Being sidelined at the last Super Bowl “was tough. Super tough,” Omenihu said. “It being against my former team, the biggest stage you can play on. And the big stage is what I thrive on. Hopefully I get the chance to do it again.”
The Chiefs gradually increased Omenihu’s snap count after he returned in Week 12. Then they helped him shake off any remaining rust by playing him extensively during the regular-season finale at Denver, when some other regulars rested.
In last week’s AFC Divisional Round victory over the Texans — the team that in 2019 drafted Omenihu into the NFL — he sacked quarterback C.J. Stroud and forced a fumble that was recovered by the Houston offense.
Omenihu, who joined the Chiefs last season and recorded seven sacks in 11 games — and another in the playoffs — fills out a defensive end rotation that includes George Karlaftis, Mike Danna and Felix Anudike-Uzomah.
It wasn’t a great season for sacks from this position group, but they responded in a big way last weekend by notching five of the eight produced by the Chiefs.
It’s not a coincidence that the Chiefs improved their pressure when Omenihu returned. Of the team’s 39 sacks, 18 occurred in his first five games back.
“He came back and it added another level to our pass rush, for sure,” Karlaftis said.
Now comes the biggest challenge to date: Josh Allen and the Bills. In the 16 games that the starters played this season, the Chiefs’ Week 11 game at Buffalo was the only one in which KC didn’t record a sack.
Allen sealed the Bills’ victory with a 26-yard touchdown run on fourth down when the Chiefs lost contain.
“He’s a beast,” Omenihu said. “He’s top-five in the league ... and this has been his best year. I have the utmost respect for him.”
Omenihu missed that Bills game because he was in the final stages of his recovery from the knee injury. Now, he looks to play a key role in helping the Chiefs reverse that outcome and reach the game he watched from afar a year ago.