Chiefs outlast Bills in another playoff thriller
Tyler Brown
The Kansas City Chiefs will be participating in the AFC Championship game for the sixth straight season. In the divisional round against the Buffalo Bills, Mahomes and the Chiefs were tasked with their first true road playoff game in the quarterback's young career.
Not only did the Chiefs come out on top, as Mahomes stayed undefeated in the divisional round, but the matchup was yet another instant classic. Arguably for the first time this season, the Chiefs won an offensive shootout as Mahomes went toe to toe with Josh Allen once again.
Carrying a three-point lead the Chiefs were forced to punt and the Bills took over possession with just over eight minutes to go in the game. Buffalo then went on a 15-play, almost seven-minute drive to set up kicker Tyler Bass with a 44-yard field goal attempt to tie the game.
The wind was blowing hard to the right and Bass did not compensate enough for it as the ball sailed to the right of the goal posts to essentially end the game with a 27-24 Chiefs win. This was the seventh time the two teams have faced each other over the past four seasons, breaking a 3-3 tie.
The Chiefs received the ball back with just under two minutes to go and still needed a first down to ice the game. Running back Isiah Pacheco did what he did all game the next two plays, which was bullying Buffalo defenders past the first down marker. Mahomes and the offense then took three kneel-downs to ice the game to send themselves to Baltimore to take on the Ravens, the AFC’s one seed.
“Every time I go up against Josh (Allen), I know it is going to come down to the end, just because of the competitor that he is and the player that he is,” Mahomes said. “Same when I go up against Joe (Burrow), when I go up against Lamar (Jackson), all of these guys. I know how much fire they have and they’re not going to give up till the very end. You appreciate that stuff. These are the games I watched growing up. The great quarterbacks going up against each other with great football teams, great organizations – that’s what I remember. Hopefully, we’re making those memories for other little kids growing up and watching football.”
As one of the NFL’s top defenses, the Chiefs allowed 24 points for just the third time this season. They were bleeding early and often throughout the entirety of the first half and wound up giving up over 182 yards on the ground by the end of the game. The Bills took a 17-13 lead into the half but the Kansas City defense showed up in a big way only allowing seven points in the second half.
“Defense started off a little slow,” head coach Andy Reid said. “Then they picked it up. I’m so proud of them and the job that they did in that second half. (Spagnuolo) had a great game plan. He made a couple of little adjustments there and the guys did a good job with that.”
This allowed the Chiefs offense to continue what they did in the first half and put together two more touchdown drives in the second half to give the Chiefs a three-point edge early in the fourth quarter. Other than a kneel-down to end the first half, Kansas City scored all of their 27 points on their first five drives of the game. The next two possessions the Chiefs turned the ball over and punted, but their defense was able to hold their lead for the entirety of the fourth quarter.
Despite running 31 fewer plays and holding the ball for nearly 15 fewer minutes, the Chiefs managed to only accumulate seven fewer yards than the Bills. The Chiefs offense was humming and efficient and they managed to produce without a monster game from wide receiver Rashee Rice. Rice hauled in some clutch catches, but mustered up just four catches for 47 yards.
That laid most of the workload at the feet of tight end Travis Kelce, Pacheco and an unsung hero who spent most of the year with a quiet box score. The unlikely performance was by wide receiver Marquez Valdez-Scantling. The sixth-year vet only had two catches but they were deep, contested catches for 30 and 32 yards. For most of the year, that deep ball intended for him has fallen on the turf.
“They played a lot of man coverage,” Mahomes said. “When you play man coverage in playoff football and they put that much attention on Travis (Kelce) and they had a little attention on Rashee (Rice) as well, other guys got to make plays. We’ve seen (Valdez-Scantling) in playoff games make a lot of big plays happen. No matter what’s happened all year long, he’s kept the mindset and mentality that he’s going to keep working and working for moments like this.”
Mahomes and Kelce set two ultra-impressive records in their win over the Buffalo Bills Sunday evening. Mahomes is now the winningest quarterback in NFL history through the first seven seasons to start a career. Mahomes now has 13 career playoff wins and is already tied for the sixth-most in league history. Given that he sat out 15 of 16 games and did not start in the playoffs in his rookie season, he technically accomplished this in six seasons.
The other record Mahomes broke was by way of his connection with his future hall-of-fame tight end. Coming into the game, Mahomes and Kelce trailed Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski by one touchdown in all-time playoff touchdown connections. Mahomes went ahead and tossed two to Kelce, moving them solely into first all-time with 16 touchdowns in the postseason.
Mahomes did not have an all-time performance, but he nearly played flawlessly. His quarterback rating was over 131 and he only had six incompletions en route to his 215 yards and two touchdowns. He did all of that on just 23 pass attempts. He is now 1-0 on the road in the playoffs, looking to make it 2-0 heading up against Lamar Jackson with a ticket punch to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on the line.
Kelce finished the day leading the Chiefs in receiving, bringing in five of his six targets for 75 yards. One of his touchdowns was to get the Chiefs a 13-10 lead after he was wide-open on a double move. His second touchdown also gave the Chiefs a lead to start the second half. That touchdown was a bubble screen that he bounced to the outside diving for the pylon. This was the first time Kelce found the endzone since week 11 against the Philadelphia Eagles.
“They (Bills) had a plan for him (Kelce),” Reid said. “They were bringing in 33 (cornerback Siran Neal) for a couple of series and having him playing man and put a guy over the top. I thought (Kelce) did a nice job. I think the time off that he had there before our last game and into that last game, he benefited from that. He was banged up a little bit and he was able to kind of get over that.”
Pacheco racked up over 100 yards from scrimmage, 97 of which came on the ground. He did that on just 15 carries, nearly averaging seven yards per carry. His touchdown in the fourth quarter gave the Chiefs the 27-24 lead.
To be frank, the Chiefs could have won the game by even more. In the fourth quarter, the Bills attempted a fake punt that the Chiefs sniffed out, giving them the ball in Buffalo territory to start the drive. Pacheco ran for a 29-yard rush, setting the Chiefs up at the three. Reid then ran an end around with wide receiver Mecole Hardman and wound up fumbling the ball through the endzone to give the Bills the ball on a bang-bang play. Had they scored a touchdown on that drive, it would have put the Chiefs up 34-24 with around 12 minutes to go.
“He’s (Harman) had so many big plays for us over time, and (even) on that play (jet sweep),” Reid said. “But you can’t reach out. He was trying, so you give him the effort but we know that you can’t do that down there because of that reason. You got to protect that football and he’ll get better for that.”
While the Chiefs' defense was not great on the ground, they were brilliant through the air. Allen only averaged 4.8 yards per attempt and not a single Bills receiver tallied more than 50 yards. Neither team had a sack, so the pressure was not there, but the defensive backs covered well. Superstar cornerback L’Jarius Sneed did allow his first touchdown of the season, to Khaili Shakir, which had given Buffalo a 24-20 lead as the fourth quarter approached.
Linebacker Nick Bolton, rookie safety Chamarri Conner and safety Justin Reid all had double-digit tackles, but much of that came in the second level with how well the Bills ran the ball. Allen killed the Chiefs with 72 yards rushing, and two touchdowns on 12 carries. Running backs James Cook and Ty Johnson also combined for over 100 yards rushing as well.
Kansas City will have a similar test next week when they head to Baltimore with the Ravens leading the NFL in rush yards per game. The Chiefs offense will also be forced to step up on offense for yet another game, as the Ravens have a league-leading defense, allowing 16.5 points per game.
The Chiefs hope to get healthy as safety Mike Edwards (concussion), Joe Thuney (left pectoral muscle) and Willie Gay (neck) all were forced to exit the contest against the Bills. The Kansas City Chiefs will travel to Baltimore to take on the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game next Sunday at 2 p.m. CDT.
