Them again. The “three-peat” is alive for the Kansas City Chiefs after they narrowly overcame the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game on Sunday to set up a potentially historic Super Bowl clash with the Philadelphia Eagles.
The finale on 9 February in New Orleans is a reprise of the Super Bowl two years ago that was won 38-35 by the Chiefs after they did just enough against spirited but slightly inferior opponents, thanks in large part to the inspirational play of quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The Bills know all too well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that agonising experience.
Josh Allen is too good to be a nearly-man on a nearly-team, but the Bills star was once again second-best in the NFL’s most compelling quarterback rivalry. This was the fourth playoff meeting between Allen and Mahomes; the Kansas City man has now won all of them.
Buffalo repeatedly ran the ball, even on fourth downs, with Allen trying to force his way over the top of the roiling scrum in a bold tactic that was as much about asserting psychological domination as it was about securing a precious extra yard or two.
Already without injured starting safety Taylor Rapp, the Bills lost key cornerback Christian Benford in the first quarter after a clash of helmets with teammate Damar Hamlin while making a tackle. Benford was driven away in a cart after suffering his second concussion in a week. But the visitors’ resilience was not in doubt as they came from behind three times to take a one-point lead in the third quarter as a diving James Cook, hauled down, stretched out his right arm like Indiana Jones reaching for his fedora and planted the ball in the end zone to give Buffalo a 22-21 lead.
Kansas City, though, absorbed Buffalo’s best and kept on replying, the teams trading touchdowns. Sean McDermott’s team erased a seven-point deficit in the fourth, levelling the scores at 29-29 with a little over six minutes left to play.
Then a Harrison Butker field goal gave Kansas City a three-point lead with three minutes and 33 seconds to go. This was Allen’s chance to drive his team up the field for the winning touchdown, enhance his superstar status and conjure a victory that would take the Bills back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1994, when they lost the title game for the fourth time in a row. But on fourth down, backpedalling, he launched a desperate long throw that slipped narrowly beyond the grasp of Dalton Kincaid. There was no way back after that.
“We were down three with the ball in Josh’s hands and I felt really good about our chances, I really did, and give credit to their defense, they made the stops there,” McDermott said. “Overall the guys battled and just came up a little bit short tonight. Looks like it could have gone either way.”
He did concede that “one or two guys in the second half didn’t do a good enough job getting pressure on Mahomes,” leading to the Bills, who have never won a Super Bowl, being thwarted by Kansas City once again. “We’ve got to keep working to get over that hump, there’s no doubt about it,” McDermott said. “This is obviously a challenge for us; we’ll figure it out.”
The Bills lead the Chiefs 4-1 in their regular-season meetings since 2020. They beat them two months ago. But all that doesn’t seem to matter in the postseason. The Chiefs’ peculiar excellence is to meet and master the moment under the guidance of Mahomes, who completed 18 of his 26 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown. They are responsive rather than relentless, adjusting as the pressure level requires, answering challenges with a fluency that feels almost automatic but is really a function of Mahomes’ unflappable genius and the tactical astuteness of the head coach, Andy Reid.
Even when, as on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, a player of Travis Kelce’s calibre was little involved. No problem: the rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy, selected with the 28th pick in the 2024 draft after the Chiefs traded picks with the Bills, stepped up and stood out.
No team has won three consecutive Super Bowls. But it’s a history-making opportunity the Chiefs earned in their seventh successive AFC championship appearance, a grinding victory that puts them on the brink of even more glory.
