KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An angry herd of Buffalo Bills stampeded around GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Oct. 10, during a Week 5 walloping of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Nine months earlier, the Chiefs had ended the Bills’ season — stopping cold the quest for Buffalo’s first Super Bowl appearance since the 1993 season, the last of an unprecedented four consecutive Super Bowl losses for a franchise whose last titles came before the AFL-NFL merger.
“Listen, they got after us,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid.
The Bills took control with 17 straight points midway through the second quarter, opened the second half with a Micah Hyde pick-six and rolled from there to a 38-20 win in a game delayed for an hour at halftime by lightning.
It was essentially the inverse of last season’s AFC Championship Game, which the Chiefs dominated.
Buffalo led 9-0 after the first quarter only to have Kansas City, which also won a regular-season meeting last season, rattle off three touchdowns in 10 minutes during the second quarter in pulling away.
Back-to-back Travis Kelce touchdowns in the second half iced a 38-24 win and clinched a second straight Super Bowl appearance.
While the last two meetings have been lopsided, the Chiefs, who ended Pittsburgh’s season 42-21 on Sunday, expect a close, hard-fought game at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday against a Bills team that eliminated New England 47-17 on Saturday.
“We know that it’s going to be another fight for us if we want to move onto the AFC Championship Game this year,” said Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who set or tied franchise records with 404 yards and five touchdowns against the Steelers.
The Chiefs have been here before a lot in recent seasons, while the Bills are trying to take lessons from last season’s disappointment to dethrone the two-time reigning AFC champs.
“It’s just another team that’s holding us back from going to the AFC championship and to the Super Bowl,” defensive end Frank Clark said. “... It’s going to be a great battle in the Midwest. Every time we play them it seems to be the big lights and all the cameras come out.”
He knows the defense didn’t execute well three months ago when the teams last met.
Not to make excuses, but the Chiefs’ defense was depleted in the Oct. 10 meeting.
Defensive tackle Chris Jones and cornerback Charvarius Ward were inactive for the game, which served as linebacker Willie Gay Jr.’s season debut after starting 2021 on injured reserve with a toe injury.
Kansas City also added Melvin Ingram a month after getting thumped by Buffalo — a move that bolstered the pass-rush rotation and allowed Jones to kick back into the interior, where he’s an All-Pro talent.
In other words, the Chiefs hope for and expect a better performance from a defense that is playing much better, but the offense needs to be firing on all cylinders, too.
“We’ve got to put up points,” Kelce, who caught and threw for a touchdown last weekend, said. “That’s the biggest thing. They’ve got a great offense. Their defense is stellar, very stout and they play great together. We’re just going to have to come out and make plays offensively. We’ve got to put up points to give ourselves a chance against a team like this.”
Kansas City fiddled around through a scoreless first quarter with Pittsburgh in the Wild Card round, but the margin for error is much thinner against a Buffalo team led by Josh Allen.
Clark said Mahomes and Allen are probably “the two best young quarterbacks in the league.”
“It’s always good when you’ve got those two guys competing against each other and then you’ve got the teams respectively competing against each other,” Clark said. “It’s going to be fun.”
After snapping a 50-year championship drought two seasons ago, the injury-plagued Chiefs got whipped in Super Bowl LV last season and hope to atone — and lay more foundation for the team’s budding dynasty — by surviving and advancing against the Bills.
“If you like chocolate cake and you eat a piece, and then you have one dangling in front of your face, you’re probably going to want to eat that, too,” Reid said. “Not much is going to stop you, so that’s how you feel about the Super Bowl. That is the chocolate cake with the ultimate frosting and you’re going to try to go get it if you can, the best you can.”
Sunday’s game will be the fifth postseason meeting between Kansas City and Buffalo, all during the Super Bowl era.
The Chiefs and Bills first met in the playoffs during the 1966 season in the AFC Championship Game, a 31-7 win that advanced Kansas City to Super Bowl I.
Buffalo smoked two Marty Schottenheimer teams in the early 1990s, winning a Divisional game during the 1991 season 37-14 and claiming the AFC Championship Game after the 1993 season 30-13 after Joe Montana got knocked from the game.
The Chiefs exacted a measure of revenge last season and will try to advance to a fourth straight conference title game with a repeat performance.
