The rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills has produced plenty of memorable moments in recent years. And CBS announcer Jim Nantz thinks it is the definitive matchup of the generation.
The Bills and Chiefs have met nine times since 2020 with Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen quarterbacking their respective sides. In that time, the two teams have played five regular season games and four playoff games. Although Buffalo has a 4-1 edge in the regular season, Kansas City has emerged victorious in every single postseason contest. The last three of them have all been one score games.
Some of those postseason games are legendary. The January 2022 matchup is widely regarded as one of the greatest NFL games of all time. After 25 combined points in the final two minutes and four lead changes, the Chiefs won in overtime. The last two meetings haven’t been quite as dramatic, but the Chiefs have won by a field goal in the divisional round two years ago and in the AFC Championship last year.
With Nantz ready to call the latest installment this weekend, he’s already spoken about his fondness for the two quarterbacks. Now he’s called the game a “generational rivalry” in an interview with Pete Grathoff of the Kansas City Star and compared it to the days when Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were squaring off with the Colts and Patriots respectively.
“To me, it’s the rivalry of this time. And I don’t even think it’s close,” . “I think it has the makings for going on for many, many years. And I’m saying that from someone who’s been blessed enough to have documented the most matchups between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Of course, a lot of it has to do with the fact that CBS is the AFC network, and Peyton and Tom resided in the AFC just like these teams do.
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“Patrick just turned 30 in September. Josh is 29 years old. I saw Peyton and Tom clash into their 40s. So I’m going to take another decade of this, that’s for sure,” Nantz also told the paper. “But it has all the makings of a kind of generational rivalry that’s influencing a lot of people. Kids that are growing up with the NFL now at this point, this is all they know. This to them is what Staubach and Bradshaw were to me, or any number of matchups you could go with like Montana and Aikman, whatever it might be this.
“For this particular generation, taking the torch from Tom and Peyton. This is the matchup that everybody wants to see. And we’ve had, in many cases, two times a year to see it. You look at all these division titles that they both won in a row, nine straight for Kansas City, five straight AFC East for Buffalo. They just keep going at it again and again because they have the first-place schedules. It repeats itself every year.”
The Chiefs-Bills rivalry may be the defining matchup of the 2020s, but there’s one thing missing that is making it truly historically great. Buffalo simply has to get over the hump and beat Kansas City in the playoffs to reach that upper pantheon of sports rivalries. Peyton Manning finally led the Colts past the Patriots in the 2006 playoffs to reach and win his first Super Bowl. Josh Allen has to do the same against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in order to reach that similar status.
The game this Sunday will certainly feel big. It will be watched by tens of millions of people. But even if the Bills can win at Highmark Stadium this week, it will still feel a little empty knowing that they’ve been there and done that before without achieving the ultimate glory.