It’s not the referees and it’s not Taylor Swift: This is the reason why the Chiefs will beat the Bills

The Kansas City Chiefs have just one game standing in their way of a third consecutive trip to the Super Bowl. That game will be played this Sunday in the AFC Conference Championship against the Buffalo Bills.

The Bills and Chiefs are quite familiar with each other in the postseason. As this will be the seventh time the two teams meet in the playoffs, they’ve developed a postseason rivalry over that time, and recent history does not favor the Bills.

Mahomes, Allen’s Achilles heel?

Of the six times the Chiefs and Bills have met in the postseason, the Bills have won just twice. Their postseason rivalry actually began in a battle for the first-ever Super Bowl in the 1966 season. The Chiefs won that first meeting 31-7, but ultimately fell to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I.

1990s Bills vs Chiefs

The Bills finally got their vengeance in the ‘90s. In the 1991 season, the Bills were a year removed from losing Super Bowl XXV by one point to the New York Giants and were determined to get another shot. They did so, beating the Chiefs 37-14 in the AFC Divisional Round. The Bills went on to defeat the Denver Broncos in the AFC title game, to then lose to the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVII.

In 1993, the Bills and Chiefs met once again in the Conference Championship, and the Bills came out on top, winning 30-13 to head to their fourth straight Super Bowl, where they’d lose again, to the Dallas Cowboys.

2000s Bills vs Chiefs

The Bills and Chiefs met in the playoffs once again, 17 years later, in the 2020 AFC Divisional Round. That marked the first-ever meeting between the teams' current quarterbacks, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Despite an incredible game on Allen’s part, the Chiefs came away with the 38-24 victory, as the Bills could not defend against Mahomes and the Kansas City offense. The Chiefs went on to lose to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV.

The two met again the following season, this time in the 2021 Divisional Round, in perhaps one of the most thrilling playoff games in NFL history. The final two minutes featured a showdown between Allen and Mahomes, in which 25 total points were scored. Allen threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to take the lead with under two minutes in the game, but then Mahomes responded with a 64-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill to take back the lead again with under a minute to play. Allen, with 17 seconds left, threw another touchdown pass to wide receiver Gabriel Davis to take the lead yet again. It looked like the Bills had the game in the bag at that point, but Mahomes led the Chiefs on a 44-yard drive, setting up Harrison Butker’s game-tying field goal to send the game to overtime.

The Chiefs won the coin toss in overtime and they made sure the Bills never got another chance. Mahomes threw the game-winning touchdown pass to tight end Travis Kelce to beat the Bills 42-36. The Chiefs went on to lose to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC title game.

In 2023, the Bills finally had the advantage of playing the AFC Divisional Round against the Chiefs in their own territory. But once again, Mahomes and the KC offense proved to be too much for the Bills to handle, as they went on to win 27-24. The Chiefs then went on to defeat the Baltimore Ravens in the Conference Championship, followed by their second consecutive Super Bowl victory, a win over the San Francisco 49ers.

So if history is any indication, Allen and the Bills are in for a challenge against the Chiefs, who they’ve yet to defeat in the postseason in the Mahomes era.

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