KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you were tired of hearing all the talk about a rematch during the last week, just wait until January if the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills meet in the playoffs for a third straight year.
“You never know how things go in this league,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “But if we keep playing well and they play well, I’m sure it will come back around. We need to make sure we take care of our business.”
Kansas City and Buffalo have now met five times in the last three seasons.
The Bills own a 2-1 edge in the regular season, but the Chiefs have won playoff games each of the last two years to end the season for Josh Allen, Sean McDermott and company.
Could another playoff meeting be in the offing this season?
“You can definitely see it, because you know they’re going to be a team that’s in the playoffs or competing for the playoffs,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “But you can’t look ahead. I think that’s the biggest thing to me. I think I learned that last year in the AFC Championship Game. Sometimes if you look ahead, you can get beat.”
With 11 more games remaining in the regular season, anything can happen across the next three months. But most NFL observers have the Chiefs and Bills pegged as the top teams in the AFC.
Whether it happens, nobody will be disappointed with seeing Bills-Chiefs VI and Mahomes-Allen III in the playoffs — well, nobody except the eventual losing team.
“You have two great quarterbacks, two great teams, you have two great coaches going at it,” Mahomes said. “That’s what you want. We lost this time, but hopefully we can battle back and have another chance in the playoffs.”
Count wide receiver Skyy Moore, who was the intended target on the game-deciding interception, among those who expected the Chiefs and Bills to tangle again — and soon.
“You got a good game out there, so I feel like we’ll most definitely see those guys again,” he said.
Kansas City linebacker Nick Bolton, who had a game-high 13 tackles with two for a loss, also didn’t mind speaking it into existence — even if he’s more worried about the San Francisco 49ers at the moment.
“We’re a firm believer we’re probably going to see those guys again,” Bolton said. “But for me personally, it’s about next week. We’ve got to come out next week against a different offense, different philosophy and stop the run. That’s kind of what I’m looking forward to.”
Still, there’s no doubt that when the Chiefs and Bills meet these days, in the regular or postseason, it seems to mean a little more, even for newcomers to the NFL’s best budding rivalry.
“I’ve come into this stadium many times with my former team, and I don’t remember the last time we had smiles in that locker room,” Miller said. “They’ve built a great team over there, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time we see those guys. I’m not going to give those guys any bulletin-board material or anything like that, so when we see them again they’ll be twice as ready to play us. None of that. It was a hard-fought game today and it came down to the very end, just like we expected it.”
