The Baltimore Ravens had the best record in the NFL during the regular season at 13-4. But the Ravens came up one victory short of the Super Bowl.

The Kansas City Chiefs upended Baltimore 17-10 in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 28, so they’ll play the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII at 5:30 p.m. CST Sunday.

The Ravens’ 13 regular-season victories included a 33-19 win over San Francisco on Dec. 25.

“Ever since we lost to the Chiefs, I have been on a big-time I don’t want anybody to win,” Baltimore cornerback Marlon Humphrey said about Super Bowl LVIII during an appearance on the “RG3 and the Ones” podcast. “I just watched the Pro Bowl a couple of days ago, and I just remember being like, ‘I don’t want the AFC to win.’ I literally told (Ravens safety) Kyle (Hamilton), ‘I hope you lose today.’ I said, ‘I wanted you to lose today just because I wanted you to still feel hurt. I wanted you to still feel hurt.’

“When I saw the 49ers-Lions (in the NFC Championship Game), I was happy the 49ers won because I didn’t feel that the Lions could beat the Chiefs. I felt the 49ers, just off their discipline, their defense, blah, blah, they were a better match for the Chiefs, so my complete biasness and slight hate in my heart for nobody really can only tell me that the 49ers need to win the Super Bowl and everybody on the AFC should lose. I don’t want a single winner for the AFC, so my biasness and slight hate in my heart for anyone winning: Go 49ers.”

But the former Alabama All-American said quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce would make Kansas City hard to beat in the NFL championship game for the 2023 season.

“I don’t even know how to stop those two together,” Humphrey said. “I’ll just be honest with you. I don’t think there is a plan to stop those guys, that connection. You just got to try to limit that as much as you can and just got to try to survive. …

“They don’t have that Tyreek Hill that they once used to have, not that they really need that. But everyone else you can man-to-man them up a little better than what people think. It’s just manning up Kelce, arguably the greatest tight end of all-time, that’s where you fall into trouble with man-to-man. And there ain’t no secret sauce to that guy. He’s elite for a good reason.”

For Kansas City to beat San Francisco, Humphrey said, the Chiefs better be able to get the 49ers’ playmakers, such as wide receiver Deebo Samuel, on the ground.

“I think the biggest way to stop them is, as simple as it sounds, tackle,” Humphrey said. “If you don’t tackle them, they will beat you so bad it will get ugly. My hit with Deebo – that guy is a brick house. All their guys are like you hit them, you kind of fall off. Was that a human? Was that a wall? What was that? You look at them, their offense, they literally have an elite, elite player in every single offensive position, literally in every position group.”

Since Humphrey joined Baltimore from Alabama in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft, the Ravens have won at least 10 games in five seasons and have one losing record, when they went 8-9 in 2021. But this season was the closest Baltimore had gotten to the Super Bowl.

“There’s so much that went wrong,” Humphrey said about the AFC Championship Game, “but I would say the biggest thing probably would be defense, us getting off the field on fourth down, and some of those third downs, those were just like it hit you in the gut. And with an offense, … you’re like, ‘Whew, that was a close one, but we got it.’ That just builds so much momentum. And so getting off the field early in the game I think really could have helped our offense get back hot. And then at the end of the game, obviously, just the turnovers killed us in the second half. They played a really good game.”

FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.