Expletive. Fight. More expletives. Chiefs reach Super Bowl and win trash-talking battle

Baltimore Ravens receiver Zay Flowers wasn't going to pass up a chance to talk trash. Why should he? Everyone else was running their mouths. Kansas City was. All of his teammates were. The fans were. Everyone. So he joined in.

Except game officials weren't having it. At least not this time. Flowers was penalized late in the game for taunting after a 54-yard catch, when he stood over Chiefs defender L'Jarius Sneed and sneered. That's a no-no.

It's likely game officials were tired of watching all the jawing before and during Sunday's AFC championship (and there was a lot of it) and wanted to use that moment to calm things down. Things got so chirpy in the game, won by Kansas City, 17-10, that at one point cameras caught Travis Kelce, on the sideline, mouthing lots of naughty words — and you didn't have to be a lip reader to understand them all. Lots of "expletive the Ravens" and "expletive their fans" and "expletive the horse they rode in on."

The NFL has attempted to tone down lots of the trash-talking with more stringent taunting penalties. The league office has been criticized as being too harsh and taking the NFL back to its No Fun League days when some of the joy was taken out of the sport with the cutting back on celebrations talking trash.

Players' objections to taking the fun out of the game goes back decades. Elmo Wright, who is believed in the 1970s to have performed the first endzone touchdown celebration, told Sports Illustrated in 1991: "This is all such a trivial deal. But it sends a signal to the players: 'Don't ever forget. You are under our control.'"

"You've got to sit on them," Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy once said. "There's a rule for a game, just as for some guy who works in an office where the company policy is you're supposed to wear a tie to work, and he should wear a tie to work. It takes a dumb player who tries to flout the rules, who tries to bring attention to himself with things other than how he plays. He does not win the public. He wins a very ignorant segment of the public. There's no one in the Hall of Fame for how well he danced."

This has long been the view of people who hate players talking trash, and the players have always fought it. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow posted Sunday on X, formerly known as Twitter, during the Ravens-Kansas City game: "Let the guys taunt."

Players have slowly, but deliberately, worked the edges of the taunting rules. Instead of celebrating in the face of an opponent after a play is made, they will walk several steps away and do it. Flowers didn't do that.

But you can't totally blame him. This game was one of the most trash-talking-est in recent playoff history. In fact, it may have been the most talky in years. There of course have been games with trash-talking, but this was on a different level. If there was a Mount Rushmore for trash-talking, this game might be on it. At least in the modern era.

The talking started even before the game began. A group of Ravens and Kansas City players got into an argument during warmups. Nothing insane, but the tone was set.

There were other pregame shenanigans that led to the trash-talking in the game. Kelce didn't like the fact that Ravens kicker Justin Tucker was practicing in a spot that Kelce felt belonged to quarterback Patrick Mahomes. It was an odd thing to do since the Ravens were, you know, at home. On their own field. In Baltimore, Maryland.

Kelce took Tucker's equipment and helmet and shoved it to the side. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce toss aside Justin Tucker's equipment during Ravens-Chiefs pregame warmups - Yahoo Sports

Kelce seemed determined to annoy the Ravens with a constant barrage of trash-talking and the Ravens seemed all too happy to return it. For much of the game, Kelce was jawing at the Ravens, and the Ravens were jawing back.

Kelce often uses trash-talk to motivate himself but this seemed different. He was in a different smack-talking place in this game. At one point, his trash-talking caused the Ravens' Kyle Van Noy to play himself. Kansas City forced a Baltimore punt with under two minutes left in the first half. Kansas City initially struggled on the drive. But then Kelce and Van Noy started jawing back and forth and then, unbelievably, Van Noy head butted Kelce, drawing a penalty.

It will be interesting to see how Kansas City uses its trash-talking superpowers in the Super Bowl.

Again, trash-talking is a part of sports, including the NFL. Some of the greatest players in history, like Larry Bird or the entire Bad Boy Pistons roster, were skilled trash-talkers.

This...was different. This was the trash-talking, expletive Hall of Fame.

Won by Kansas City.