We do facts instead of hyperbole here, but it is no stretch to say Sunday’s AFC Championship Game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs is one of the biggest games in NFL history.

The incredible history on the line is the reason for that praise, and it helps that these teams are meeting in the playoffs for the fourth time since 2020. Buffalo is the only team to beat Kansas City’s starters in their last 22 games. It’s a rivalry, and some are saying Sunday is the real Super Bowl LIX since they are both favored in hypothetical matchups against the Commanders and Eagles from the NFC bracket (see our NFC Championship Game preview here).

This epic matchup, which has been anticipated since the teams met in November, is taking the NFL back to the 1990 season. That’s when the 49ers came closer than anyone in NFL history at a Super Bowl three-peat before Roger Craig fumbled in the fourth quarter and they lost 15-13 to the Giants in the NFC Championship Game.

If the Chiefs win this game, they’ll become the first team to repeat and reach a third-straight Super Bowl, putting them a win away from immortality.

But the 1990 season was also the closest Buffalo ever came to winning its first Super Bowl. At the time, they may have felt like they caught a break in drawing the Giants instead of those 49ers in Super Bowl XXV, but the 6.5-point underdog Giants defeated Buffalo, 20-19, after kicker Scott Norwood was wide right on a 47-yard field goal.

The Bills returned to the next three Super Bowls, but they were always heavy underdogs and never came close to winning any of those games as they did in the 1990 season.

But besides the three-peat and Buffalo chasing that elusive ring, there is so much other history on the line here, including the Five-Year Rule, and several NFL records involving turnovers for both teams.

Who will get the job done to have their shot at finishing the story in New Orleans next month?

Buffalo Bills at Kansas City Chiefs (-1.5, O/U 47.5)

The No. 2 Buffalo Bills (15-4) will take on the No. 1 Kansas City Chiefs (16-2) this Sunday evening at Arrowhead. The weather looks like it should be calm and in the upper 20s, so no Ice Bowl or snow game here.

NFL Conference Championship Game Rematches

We already took a peek at this with the Commanders-Eagles preview. Since 1978, there have been 63 rematches from the regular season in the Conference Championship Game. Commanders-Eagles will be the 64th and Bills-Chiefs will be the 65th this Sunday. Here are some notable stats from the last 63 rematches:

• The playoff record for the team who won the last meeting (Bills) is 37-26 (.587).
• The home team in the last meeting was 42-21 (.667) in the regular season and 42-21 (.667) in the playoffs.
• The records for the 32 teams (like the Eagles and Chiefs) who were on the road in the regular season and home in the playoffs are 15-17 (.469) in the regular season (15-19 including losses by the Eagles and Chiefs) and 22-10 (.688) in the playoffs.
• The playoff record for the road loser switching venues in the title game (Chiefs) is just 9-8 (.529).

But these teams are very familiar with each other, and the Chiefs have already built up an impressive history of facing a team at home in the AFC title game after seeing them on the road earlier in the season. This is already the sixth time they’ll be doing that, and they are 1-5 on the road in the first meeting and 3-2 at home in the playoffs.

This is already the 6th time the Chiefs are playing an AFC-CG rematch at home against a team they faced on the road:

2018 Patriots: 0-2 Sweep (road & home)
2019 Titans: Split 1-1 (road & home)
2020 Bills: 2-0 Sweep (road & home)
2021 Bengals: 0-2 Sweep (road & home)
2022…

— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) January 22, 2025

If you’re looking for past precedent of a team losing on the road before hosting the title game rematch as a small 1.5-point favorite and winning, look no further than two years ago when the Chiefs beat the Bengals 23-20.

The Past Matchups

2024, Week 11: Bills 30, Chiefs 21

JOSH. ALLEN. GREATNESS.

: #KCvsBUF on CBS/Paramount+
: https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/3HyIoDCaAC

— NFL (@NFL) November 18, 2024

These teams never play the same game twice. You might say no teams do that in the volatile NFL, but the two Bengals-Ravens games this year beg to differ. However, we just saw the Bills reverse their 35-10 loss in Baltimore with a 27-25 win at home last week, and the Chiefs will look to do the same to avenge their loss in Buffalo.

You could do a whole preview just on how the last eight games have gone between these teams since 2020. We know the record is 4-4 with the Bills getting the best of the Chiefs in the regular season (four wins in a row) while Kansas City is 3-0 in the postseason.

Something I feel strongly about with this rivalry is that both teams seem to usually play up to the standard they went into that game with. Few surprises (good or bad). Let me demonstrate what I mean.

• 2020: When they met for the first time in Week 6, it was a rescheduled Monday game at 5:00 PM for COVID reasons, and the Bills were a bit sloppy after getting crushed 42-16 in Tennessee a week earlier. The Chiefs finished them off in the fourth quarter in a 26-17 win. When they met in the AFC title game, the Chiefs continued their hot offense while the Bills, who got past Baltimore in a 17-3 game thanks to a pick-six the previous week, looked erratic and not ready for the big show in a 38-24 loss.
• 2021: The Chiefs were playing awful defense and shooting themselves in the foot with turnovers during a 3-4 start. They played exactly like that on a Sunday night while Josh Allen was getting major MVP buzz and shredded the Chiefs in a 38-20 win, the largest home defeat of Patrick Mahomes’ career. But by the time they met in the divisional round, both offenses were very efficient and on a tear, and neither defense stood a chance in the 42-36 overtime classic known as the 13 Seconds Game.
• 2022: In a Week 6 showdown in Arrowhead, the Bills were the talk of the league and were just a little better than the Chiefs in a 24-20 win keyed by Allen’s game-winning drive and the defense stopping Mahomes with an interception. There was never a playoff rematch.
• 2023: In Week 14, both teams came in on a slump with the Bills in must-win mode at 6-6. Both offenses struggled and the Bills prevailed 20-17 after Kansas City’s lateral touchdown from Travis Kelce to Kadarius Toney was undone by an offsides penalty. But in the playoffs, both offenses were sharp in Buffalo before a wild fourth quarter that saw a Damar Hamlin fake punt, Mecole Hardman fumble at the 1-yard line, multiple drops by the Bills, and a missed 44-yard field goal by Tyler Bass to try tying the game at 27 as the Chiefs prevailed.
• 2024: In the Week 11 showdown in Buffalo, the Bills were on a 5-game winning streak and scoring 30 every week. The Chiefs were still 9-0 but you can see they were running on fumes a bit after blocking a field goal to escape Denver with a win a week earlier. The Bills outplayed them, Allen made that memorable touchdown run on 4th-and-2, and the Bills won 30-21.

You can read my long recap of Week 11 here, but see what I mean about how both teams pretty much played up to their current level? There was never a game where someone unexpectedly dropped 40 points, or someone crapped the bed and scored 10 points. Gabe Davis catching four touchdowns in one playoff game was a shocker, but the overall play of the offense wasn’t. The game always fits with the flow of the team’s season at that point.

What would that look like for this Sunday if it holds true again? That’s a little harder to answer since the Chiefs had that 24-day break between Christmas and Saturday’s game for the starters, and the Bills also kind of took things lightly down the stretch after winning in Detroit. Then if you’re just talking about last week, neither offense hit 275 yards as they basically watched the Texans and Ravens self-destruct.

Both teams are managing turnovers very well as we’ll get into soon below. But the Chiefs have had some of their best offensive games down the stretch, and they haven’t allowed anyone to score 20 points in the last six games they’ve tried to win. The Bills were strong offensively against Denver, then played a very conservative approach against Baltimore, but it was still efficient enough to get the win after winning the turnover battle 3-0.

But it should be a distinctly different game from Week 11 this Sunday.

Injury Watch and What Changes from Week 11

Another reason to expect a much different game is that both teams will have several players on the field this Sunday that they didn’t have in Week 11.

Players who missed 1st Buffalo-KC game:#Bills
Matt Milano
Spencer Brown
Dalton Kincaid
Keon Coleman
Dawuane Smoot#Chiefs
Isiah Pacheco
Marquise Brown
Jaylen Watson
Charles Omenihu
Harrison Butker

This game could look lots different

— Thad Brown (@thadbrown7) January 22, 2025

The Chiefs come in healthy with no player limited in practice this Wednesday. Isiah Pacheco hasn’t looked like a better back than Kareem Hunt, but he’s an option they didn’t have in Week 11 in the backfield. The bigger change is the move of Joe Thuney to left tackle from guard, sending Wanya Morris to the bench, which has been good news for Mahomes.

Hollywood Brown dropped his big target against the Texans last week and didn’t catch a pass, but he should do more against Buffalo after not playing in Week 11. The Chiefs also got their No. 2 corner Jaylen Watson back, which means fewer snaps for Nazeeh Johnson, who was roasted for 89 yards in Week 11. He’s really bad. Charles Omenihu had a sack last week against Houston and could help the pass rush that struggled to touch Allen.

The Bills will have more weapons on the field this time with tight end Dalton Kincaid and rookie wideout Keon Coleman returning to action. Tight ends have been very effective against the Chiefs this year, though Kincaid had just one catch for 11 yards last week and is only averaging 6.0 yards per target after he averaged 7.4 as a rookie. Coleman doesn’t get much separation but he could make a big play down the field. The Bills also get tackle Spencer Brown back to bolster their elite offensive line.

Matt Milano is not the defensive stud Tony Romo makes him out to be, but yes, he should be back in action after missing the last game. But the Bills have some concerns this week with safety Taylor Rapp and corner Christian Benford after they were injured during Sunday’s win over Baltimore. Benford is in the concussion protocol, so that’s one to watch.

All in all, I would give the Chiefs the edge on health and which players are a factor now who weren’t available in Week 11.

Stats to Know

Here are some relevant and informative statistics for these teams heading into this matchup:

• In Week 11, Patrick Mahomes’ average time to throw was 3.35 seconds, his longest game this season (source: NGS).
• The Chiefs are 19-15 when Mahomes’ average time to throw exceeds 3.0 seconds and 87-11 when it’s under 3.0 seconds.
• Buffalo’s defense has not played a single snap of base defense against the Chiefs since the games in 2020, their first year of facing Mahomes.
• Mahomes used play-action passing on 34.3% of his dropbacks in Week 11, his highest game ever against the Bills and second-highest game this season.
• The Chiefs used 11 personnel on 32.7% of plays in Week 11, the second-lowest game in the Mahomes era.
• Travis Kelce was held to 8 yards on 4 targets in Buffalo in Week 11. He has 14 straight playoff games with at least 70 receiving yards, twice as long as the second-longest streak.
• The Bills are the only offense to score 30 points against Kansas City’s starting defense in the last two seasons.
• The Chiefs have scored at least 21 points in every non-division game this season (held under 20 points in five division games).
• The Chiefs have not allowed more than 25 points at home since Week 5 of the 2022 season.
• The Chiefs have not allowed 30 points in their last 30 home games, last doing so in the 2021 AFC divisional round against Buffalo (42-36 win).
• The Chiefs have allowed four teams to rush for over 140 yards this season: Baltimore in Week 1 and their last three opponents since Christmas.
• The Bills are 1-4 on the road when allowing more than 20 points this season.
• We said earlier that Chiefs corner Jaylen Watson replacing Nazeeh Johnson is big, because Johnson allowed a touchdown and big yardage in coverage in Week 11 while No. 1 corner Trent McDuffie gave up 1 yard on 3 targets.
• The Chiefs led the NFL with 49 unblocked pressures on blitzes but they struggle to get pressure without blitzing, and Buffalo’s offense allows the fourth-lowest pressure rate against the blitz (source: NGS).
• But against the blitz in Week 11, Allen was just 8-of-16 for 108 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT.

Let’s also not forget about The Five-Year Rule. In NFL history, no team has ever won its first Super Bowl starting the same quarterback for the same coach for more than five years. This is Year 7 for Sean McDermott and Josh Allen, so they are fighting history once again.

Story of the Game: Turnovers

We have seen Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen duel in enough big games to not overdo the quarterback angle in this one. I was right last week to predict that Ravens-Bills would not be a quarterback duel and would instead be decided by things like turnovers and dropped passes.

I won’t go as far to say the same about this game on the quarterback front, but I think Bills-Chiefs will come down to one word: Turnovers.

This has been a historic season for turnovers with teams averaging just 1.2 per game, the lowest rate in NFL history since they’ve kept track. The Bills (8), Chargers (9), Ravens (11), and Chiefs/Rams (14) were the five teams with the fewest giveaways this season.

But turnovers are volatile, fluky, and regress to the mean, and this can be true on both sides of the ball. Some quarterbacks do a better job than others of not throwing interceptions consistently, but even Mahomes’ 2024 season is proof that you can go from every bad bounce going against you to rarely throwing a pick in the same season.

But contrary to popular belief, I don’t think quarterbacks like Mahomes, Allen, Lamar Jackson, or Justin Herbert magically figured out how to not throw picks anymore in 2024.

Herbert certainly remembered in the wild card round when he threw a career-high four picks after three in the regular season. You can say one was off a receiver’s hands, but that’s the point. Sometimes they are just random, fluke events and that’s why it’s hard to rely on them or get overly troubled with them unless a player keeps throwing them in the same game-deciding spots.

The playoffs can also be very unforgiving with turnover regression. Lamar Jackson basically threw one pick all year that was fully his fault, and yet he did that Sunday in Buffalo and added a bad fumble on a fluke play with a high snap on top of it – his only game this season with multiple giveaways.

You can point to Allen and Mahomes having past success in the postseason of not turning it over at high rates. But what the Chiefs and Bills are doing (or not doing) with turnovers right now is absurd. Just look at these records, and yes, we’re talking about NFL history here:

• The 2024 Bills have 8 giveaways in 19 games, an NFL record for the fewest in any 19-game span in history.
• The 2019 Saints were the only other team to have 8 turnovers in a 16-game season, and they turned it over twice (10 total) in their first playoff game.
• The 2024 Chiefs have not turned the ball over in their last eight games, breaking the 2010 Patriots’ record (7 games) for the longest streak in NFL history without a giveaway.
• Including the playoffs, the 2024 Chiefs are the first team in NFL history to play five games in a season where neither team turned the ball over.
• The 2023-24 Bills are on a 21-game streak without losing the turnover battle (positive or neutral), the longest streak in the Super Bowl era (the 2006-07 Patriots had a 20-game streak).
• The 2024 Bills were +14 in fumble recoveries in the regular season, tied for the second-best mark since 2000, and they are up to +16 after the Baltimore playoff game.
• The 2024 Bills are the first team since at least 1992 to not have any lost fumbles by non-quarterbacks as Allen has both of their lost fumbles this season.

The thing about all-time record streaks is that they usually are about to end once you start talking about them unless the record holder is really going to push things far out of reach.

But maybe these teams are just different. Maybe the Chiefs will play their sixth game this year with neither team turning it over, and that will allow all these streaks and records to continue another game.

But I truly believe this game has high potential for one team to implode with turnover regression, lose that turnover battle, and lose the game – possibly by more than one score too.

That is my best prediction for this game, one sure to infuriate both fanbases. But hey, maybe they can agree to start the game with a red zone turnover on each side like they did in 2022 just to get it out of the way and play a clean game afterwards.

I just refuse to believe these teams have solved turnovers to the point where one will ride these streaks right through the Super Bowl. That’s not the NFL I know.

New NFL Team Metric: Fraud Alert

In the Commanders-Eagles preview, I introduced a new team metric I’m calling Fraud Alert that measures teams on these three factors: strength of schedule (using Simple Rating System), turnover margin, and average starting field position on offense.

The idea is that teams who pad their stats against a softer schedule by dominating turnovers and feasting on short fields are not as good as their record and numbers suggest, and you shouldn’t trust them come playoff time to finish with a Super Bowl.

As it turns out, the Bills (+5.86), Eagles (+3.86), and Commanders (+3.35) lead the NFL in Fraud Alert Rating (FAR) for 2024, so it’s up to the Chiefs to make me look good when I say teams like this just don’t win championships.

But the 2024 Bills rank so high because they have had the best field position and turnover margin, and they’ve had one of the easiest schedules. In matching up with the Chiefs, this is actually going to be one of the biggest mismatches in Fraud Alert history, which I have completed back in 2002, the start of the 32-team, 8-division era.

The 2024 Chiefs are only 17th in FAR (-0.67), so that would give the Bills a +6.54 edge in FAR, which would be the fourth-largest difference in the last 262 playoff games since 2002.

The problem is you really don’t want to have that high of a mark to be considered an outlier. People tend to struggle with descriptive stats because it’s not one where you should rank very high or very low, because you don’t want to be an outlier.

It’s like air yards for a quarterback. You don’t want your quarterback averaging 12 air yards per pass like Anthony Richardson, because that means he’s not taking any easy throws underneath or moving the chains. You also don’t want someone dinking and dunking at 5 yards per throw, because then you’ll never convert third long or generate many big plays. There has to be some balance in between, and FAR is similar in that regard.

Teams at the bottom of FAR generally stink, because that would imply a team who has a tough schedule, terrible field position, and is bad at managing turnovers. It’s no surprise those teams rarely have winning records.

But when you start looking at some of these figures, it’s hard to deny there isn’t something here. Look at the top 10 mismatches in the playoffs since 2002 in FAR:

The team with the higher FAR was 2-8, and that includes Sunday’s win by Buffalo over Baltimore, a game with a +7.17 difference that is actually higher than the Bills-Chiefs game (+6.54) will be. It took a 3-0 turnover battle win and dropped 2-point conversion by Mark Andrews to get the job done there for Buffalo.

Notice the 13 Seconds Game is on here, a rare game that didn’t have any turnovers as Mahomes exposed Buffalo’s fraudulent No. 1 scoring defense that beat up on bad quarterbacks that year.

But tying in our previous section about turnovers with Fraud Alert, turnovers really stand out here with these upsets. Then when you look at the top teams in Fraud Alert since 2002, none of the top 10 won a Super Bowl, and the No. 11 team (2016 Patriots) won it after trailing 28-3 and getting a million breaks to go their way, including a dropped interception by Robert Alford that was caught for a big gain by Julian Edelman.

Only 11 teams have produced a FAR above +5.0 since 2002, so here they are with the 2024 Bills’ fate still to be determined:

Most of these teams are known for having a devastating turnover to end their season in the playoffs:

• The 2011 49ers lost the NFC Championship Game to the Giants in large part because Kyle Williams fumbled twice on special teams, including in overtime to set up the Giants’ field goal.
• The 2015 Panthers lost Super Bowl 50 to Denver in large part because of the two fumbles that Von Miller was involved in with Cam Newton, including a touchdown and one in the fourth quarter.
• Tom Brady’s last pass as a Patriot in 2019 was a pick-six against the Titans in the wild-card round.
• Aaron Rodgers lost his first playoff start in Arizona in overtime after fumbling on a strip-sack that was returned for a game-ending touchdown in a 51-45 loss.
• The 2022 49ers never stood a chance in Philadelphia after Brock Purdy’s elbow was blown up on the opening drive on a strip-sack hit by Haason Reddick.
• In the 2002 NFC Championship Game, Ronde Barber returned a Donovan McNabb pass for a game-clinching touchdown.
• Andy Reid’s first year in Kansas City saw him blow a 38-10 lead in Indy, a comeback that got a spark to it from Robert Mathis forcing a strip-sack of Alex Smith.
• The 2017 Ravens were the only team to miss the playoffs after giving up a long touchdown pass to Tyler Boyd of the Bengals in the final minute of Week 17.

Again, a very high FAR doesn’t mean the 2024 Bills can’t win the Super Bowl. They’re a 1.5-point underdog against a team they already beat 30-21, and they’d be favored in the Super Bowl too indoors. But history would suggest that the Chiefs are still more likely to win it than these other three teams left, and we know that team is battle-tested and can come through in the clutch.

But it’s hard to argue that you should want a high Fraud Alert Rating when only one of the top 45 teams since 2002 won the Super Bowl, and that team needed the all-time comeback to pull it off.

Also, teams with a higher FAR only win 51.9% of their playoff games since 2002. Compare that to teams who have a higher scoring differential (60.3%), DVOA (59.6%), SRS (59.2%), or are the favorite on the moneyline (63.3%).

In the Conference Championship round since 2002, the team with the higher FAR is 19-25 (.432). That’s the opposite of the teams with the higher scoring differential, DVOA, and SRS, who are all 25-19 (.568).

Since 2002, the road team with a FAR differential above +1.0 is just 2-11 in Conference Championship Games. The bright side for Buffalo is the Chiefs lost at home to the 2021 Bengals in overtime after blowing a 21-3 lead.

But that team didn’t quite have the devil magic of this team going for a three-peat and being this close to doing it.

The Keys to Victory

What does each team need to do to win this week?

Bills – Embrace the Underdog Role

Buffalo made it no secret after the Baltimore win that it’s been motivated by the lack of respect from Pro Bowl votes to awards like the MVP that is likely going to Lamar Jackson again.

I think the Bills should keep the underdog role at the forefront of this business trip to end Kansas City’s three-peat dream in their own building, which would be the ultimate revenge for some of these past playoff losses to the Chiefs. There might not be a better shot than this, at least not for the McDermott era.

The Bills need to be loose but still play smart with the ball like they have since Week 1. That turnover battle is going to be key, and the Chiefs generally haven’t been good at forcing turnovers outside of facing Jameis Winston once.

But the Bills should also be aggressors and take it to the Chiefs, who probably are going to blitz and do things they didn’t see in Week 11. I wouldn’t object to a trick play of throwing Allen a pass this week. Just tell the receiver not to throw it if it’s not open or you’ll end up like Jameson Williams of Detroit. But be the more aggressive team on fourth down, because Andy Reid has been fairly conservative and not going for the killshots this year.

I’d expect Allen to be much more aggressive as a passer after so many quick and short throws against the Ravens. He’s played the Chiefs so many times that he should have a good read on Steve Spagnuolo’s defense by now. He also has to get his running backs heavily involved as they have been such an asset in the passing game this year.

Keep in mind, in last year’s game, Allen had the fewest passing yards in NFL history in a playoff game with 26 completions as he didn’t even break 200 yards at home. So, he needs to test things downfield a little more in this game, and I’d be looking to get Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid more involved as the Chiefs have struggled to slow down tight ends since Week 1.

Defensively, you have to take away Travis Kelce, which the Bills did in the first game. DeAndre Hopkins and Marquise Brown technically still haven’t made a catch for the Chiefs in the postseason after playing a full game last week. Let them try to beat you along with a rookie like Xavier Worthy. But Kelce must be guarded and taken away because that’s where Mahomes is going to look in crucial spots.

Then you always have to make Mahomes hold the ball longer as a key to beating him. If the Chiefs are executing with the quick game, it’s going to be a tough battle. Make him hold the ball as these receivers are either too old, too inexperienced in this offense, or too mistake-prone to decimate you the way past Kansas City offenses could.

But you still have to expect to play a four-quarter game to beat this team. Good start means little. Keep the pressure on and keep the ball away from Mahomes at the end.

Chiefs – How Bad Do You Want It?

For months, I have heard how the Chiefs purposely held things back in Week 11 in Buffalo for this exact moment. Maybe they’re right.

I can’t imagine another game where Mahomes never runs with the ball once. It’s the playoffs, and he knows it’s do-or-die. Some of his best playoff highlights are his runs, so he should be going all out here. He also should target his starting back with a pass, which he didn’t do in Week 11 either.

It also won’t be a game where Kelce has 2 catches for 8 yards, and where Worthy is the only player to break 30 receiving yards. Maybe the Chiefs purposely held back the Kelce plays to scheme him open for this one. He looked great against the Texans and had weeks of rest for this exact run where he’s been a monster in the postseason. He has to play big.

A lot of complaints about Spagnuolo not having a spy on Allen on the big 4th-and-2 in Week 11. Again, maybe they will play things much differently with Watson at the corner and Omenihu back in the pass rush. They won’t have an easy sitting target like C.J. Stroud last week with his leg injury, and the Buffalo line blows Houston’s away. But I’d expect one of the best defensive coaches in playoff history to have some new tricks for Allen to figure out.

How bad does Reid want this three-peat? I think a lot of his situational calls this year have been poor, and he nearly cost them the Black Friday game against the Raiders by not running out the clock on offense. He had chances to go up bigger on the Texans on Saturday and did a bad job with that too.

For all the talk about Reid saving his best for the playoffs, I’m not going to forget a designed run to Mecole Hardman on 1st-and-goal from the 1 in Buffalo that led to a fumble through the end zone, or else the Chiefs could have had a much easier win that night too instead of sweating it out again.

The Chiefs have won 16 straight one-score games, another NFL record streak that could be on the line in this game. Both of these teams are playing with fire, but who will show more fire on the field? Who wants it more?

It better be the Chiefs, because Buffalo is on its own mission this year. The Chiefs have to match their intensity because I think they’re going to protect better, are more likely to get takeaways, and the Chiefs always have a tough time with this team.

But this is for history and to be the first team a win away from the three-peat. If they can’t get up for that and play their best game at home, then they don’t deserve that glory.

Best Bets and Prediction

The Bills haven’t won a road playoff game since the 1992 season. This would be quite the time to do it, but it will no doubt be a tough battle. Still, with all the overblown officiating controversy stuff with the Chiefs this week, you have to think the Chiefs may not get a fair whistle this week. That could help Buffalo on the road.

Some are comparing this game to the 2006 Colts getting over the hump in the playoffs against the Patriots. The problem is I already wrote that narrative last year and the Bills still lost at home. This will be their fourth chance against the Chiefs.

It took Steve Young and the 49ers four tries (and a missed Jerry Rice fumble) to beat Brett Favre and the Packers in 1998. That’s the only other case on record of a quarterback beating another for the first time after starting 0-3 against him in the postseason. The problem is Manning and Young were at home for those games where they overcame their rival. The Bills lost that shot this year the day they lost to the Rams, a 44-42 game that looks like an outlier in the Rams’ season.

This is a fascinating matchup, but at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to protecting the ball, converting third downs, and finishing in the fourth quarter. Can the Bills do it? Yeah, they play as well as any opponent in that building.

But it’s also really hard to bet against the Chiefs even if there is precedent for them getting swept out of the playoffs in this round at home against the 2018 Patriots and 2021 Bengals.

Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. Win that battle and you’ll win this game. But I wouldn’t complain if it’s another 42-36 classic with no turnovers and no officiating conspiracy.

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