KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s official — the Kansas City Chiefs’ path to a possible sixth straight AFC Championship Game goes through Buffalo.
The second-seeded Bills’ victory Monday in a weather-delayed Super Wild Card game means Patrick Mahomes will play a road playoff game for the first time in his NFL career — unless you count Super Bowl LV against the Buccaneers in Tampa, Florida.
Third-seeded Kansas City — which lost 20-17 against Buffalo on Dec. 10 at home, giving Sean McDermott’s crew the tiebreaker in a game best remembered for Kadarius Toney’s offside penalty which negated his own potential game-winning touchdown off a backward pass from Travis Kelce — continues its playoff journey at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York.
The reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs and Bills have met five previous times in the postseason.
Kansas City has won three of those games, including both matchups since Mahomes’ arrival.
The Chiefs easily handled Buffalo in the 2020 AFC Championship Game 38-24 then beat the Bills 42-36 a year later in an epic 2021 AFC Divisional Round overtime thriller dubbed “The 13-Second Game.”
Kansas City’s last playoff visit to Buffalo, where Kansas City is 1-2 all-time in the postseason, came in the 1993 AFC Championship Game when a struggling Joe Montana got knocked from a 30-13 loss with a head injury.
The only Chiefs quarterback besides Mahomes to win a playoff game against the Bills is Len Dawson, who shrugged off nine sacks and went 16 of 24 for 227 yards with two touchdowns in a 31-7 win at Buffalo to clinch the 1966 AFL championship and send Kansas City on to Super Bowl I against Green Bay.
The Chiefs have never lost in the Wild Card or Divisional rounds with Mahomes at quarterback, improving to 7-0 in the first two rounds of the NFL playoffs with Saturday’s frigid 26-7 romp against Miami.
Buffalo leads the all-time series between the teams 29-24-1, including a 27-21-1 record in the regular season.
The Chiefs have lost two straight regular-season games to the Bills and are scheduled to return to Buffalo during the 2024 regular season.
But first, Kansas City’s streak of five straight conference championship game appearances will be on the line. New England owns the NFL record for consecutive conference title game appearances at eight in a row during the 2011-18 seasons.
If the Chiefs win and top-seeded Baltimore is upset in the Divisional Round, the game will be at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Ravens would host the Kansas City-Buffalo winner with a win on Saturday against Houston.
MOST POSTSEASON WINS BY CHIEFS QB
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