Allen gets another shot at Chiefs
It’s a growing rivalry with the Bills’ playoff path going through Kansas City again
No matter what the seedings say, the Kansas City Chiefs are the team to beat.
Maybe not overall. That’s still Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, regardless of what the folks in Green Bay might think.
But in the AFC, while the Tennessee Titans may hold the No. 1 seed and have star running back Derrick Henry returning from injury this weekend, it’s the Chiefs who remain the AFC champions and must be knocked out as they gun for a third straight Super Bowl appearance.
The Buffalo Bills want to believe they are the just the team to perform that task after falling short 12 months ago. You remember that one. The Bills jumped ahead 9-0 after Kansas City muffed a punt, but then the home side put up 38 points in two-and-a-half quarters while the Bills offence couldn’t keep up. It ended up being, essentially, a one-sided affair.
Patrick Mahomes outplayed Josh Allen, and the Buffalo defence did so little to disrupt Mahomes that a few months later the Bills spent their first two picks in the NFL draft on two pass rushers, Greg Rousseau and Boogie Basham.
Since then, the two teams have met once more, in Week 5 again at Arrowhead Stadium, and this time it was the Bills coming out on top with Allen outplaying Mahomes for the first time. But football rivalries are made in the post-season, and if this Bills-Chiefs matchup is going to become a noteworthy rivalry, and if Mahomes vs. Allen is going to become a new version of Brady vs. Peyton Manning, then the Bills need to stake their claim Sunday night in Missouri.
Yes, it’s a shame that the two teams are colliding one step earlier in the NFL playoffs than last year. But the gritty Titans had a strong season while overcoming the absence of Henry, and both the Chiefs and Bills had enough stumbles along the way that they generated great doubts, even among their most loyal fans, at different points in the season.
Still, we get the rematch everyone wanted to see. From a Buffalo standpoint, it’s clear the defence is improved. Against the pass, it’s the best in football. Allen, meanwhile, may not have quite the numbers he had last year, but most believe he’s a more mature quarterback today and he certainly showed that last weekend against New England when he led his team to seven touchdowns on the Bills’ first seven possessions.
“What you see with Josh as he gets better and better every single year is he’s not satisfied with where he’s at,’’ Mahomes said this week.
“He works through his throwing motion, he works on his feet, he does different types of stuff to give himself an edge, and I think that’s what all the best quarterbacks do.
“I think that’s what’s put (the Bills) at this level where they’re a dominating team. He’s definitely gotten better and better each and every year and I’m sure we’ll have lots of battles as both of our careers go on.”
We can only hope for that. “Both of them are great for the NFL,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid told Buffalo media Wednesday. “They’re both mobile. They both can run around, extend plays. It’s fun to watch unless you’re playing them, right?
Then it’s not so fun.”
It’s been a newsy week for both clubs. For the Chiefs, the good news is that it appears running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire is healthy and available after missing the last three games. He gives Mahomes a comfortable passing option out of the backfield.
The bad news, meanwhile, was that linebacker William Gay Jr. was arrested mid-week and charged with a property damage misdemeanour in a dispute with the mother of his child. This being the NFL, of course, Gay will play Sunday anyway.
For Buffalo, it’s been another week of intense speculation about which members of the organization will be working elsewhere next season, and you wonder how that affects a team internally. While offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and defensive co-ordinator Leslie Frazier have had head coaching interviews, assistant general manager Joe Schoen was named the new GM of the sad-sack New York Giants on Friday. There’s already speculation that he is going to hire Daboll to be his head coach with the Giants.
Away from all those rumours, the Bills look to be about as healthy as any team could hope to be for a game like this.
Everything worked on both sides of the football against the Patriots, and the challenge will be what happens Sunday night when the Chiefs put up more of a fight than Bill Belichick’s overwhelmed New England squad did.
What happens on Sunday, for instance, when the Chiefs take some things away from the Buffalo offence and the hostile Arrowhead crowd turns up the noise? Allen believes he’s ready after some tough lessons, including last year’s AFC title game.
“Taking the experience and the knowledge that we’ve gained, understanding that every drive that you have in the playoffs is very crucial to the game,” Allen said. “Being smart with the football and not pressing.”
Oddsmakers still like Chiefs by a couple of points. That’s fair. They looked dominant in closing out Ben Roethlisberger’s career last week, and most believe an improved Kansas City defence is what got the team out of an early season funk.
Buffalo’s window to win won’t close with a loss, but a victory changes the entire conversation about this football team and its future, and would also undoubtedly help fuel the drive for a new stadium. The Bills seem to be peaking, with an organization so talented that other teams are trying to steal their best people.
All that’s good. Now they have to prove they can beat the best. On the road. In January.