Patrick Mahomes' Chiefs and Josh Allen's Bills are going head-to-head for the 10th time in the past six seasons on Sunday. Kansas City leads the series 5-4, with four of those victories coming in the postseason.
One would have to hit the Wayback Machine to find the last time the Chiefs beat the Bills in a regular-season matchup. It was the 2020 season, and the game was played on a Monday afternoon, as it was postponed due to COVID-19. It was played in an empty stadium (the attendance for that game was literally zero), and players and coaches had to wear masks on the sidelines. The Chiefs won that game 26-17 in a stadium full of vacant seats. Those seats will be occupied by approximately 71,000 rabid, screaming, and borderline insane Bills fans on Sunday.
It goes without saying that a lot has changed since that overcast game on Monday Afternoon Football. Allen and the Bills have had their way against the Chiefs in the regular season since then. In 2021, Buffalo bullied Kansas City all over their home field en route to a 38-24 blowout win. In 2022, the Bills returned to Arrowhead and won a tighter game, 24-20. In the 2023 season, Buffalo once again left Kansas City victorious, winning 20-17 in the infamous Kadarius Toney offsides game. Most recently, Allen and company handed the Chiefs their first loss in nearly a calendar year, coming away with a 30-21 win.
This year's regular-season matchup between the Chiefs and Bills carries more weight than previous iterations.
Of course, every Bills player, coach, fan, and front office member would tell you that those four wins, while exciting at the time, were not worth celebrating once the season was over. Despite all of Allen's greatness and Buffalo's success over the past half-decade, they have yet to reach, let alone win, a Super Bowl—and the Chiefs are the biggest reason why.
Despite the regular-season results largely being in the Bills' favor, the Chiefs have gotten a higher playoff seed all but one season. 2020 was the only season where the Chiefs swept the Bills, defeating them 38-20 in the AFC Championship Game. Buffalo's 2021 season ended in the legendary 13-seconds game, in which the Chiefs won 42-36 in overtime. 2022 was the only season where the two did not meet in the postseason, as Buffalo's season fell short of the AFC Championship Game in a home loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Had the Bills won that game, the AFC Championship would have taken place in Atlanta due to controversy over playoff seeding, as the Bills and Bengals played one fewer game. In 2023, the Bills saw their season end in the divisional round in front of their home fans, as Tyler Bass went wide right and the Chiefs left Western New York with a 27-24 victory. The fourth and final (for now) matchup between the two teams occurred last January at Arrowhead in another hard-fought, down-to-the-wire matchup. Once again, the Chiefs came out on top by a score of 32-29 to advance to their fifth Super Bowl in six years.
The matchup on Sunday is slightly different from years past. Of course, both teams remain contenders to hoist the Lombardi Trophy on February 8, and both Mahomes and Allen are once again firmly in the MVP race. Unlike years past, there is a greater sense of desperation for both teams, as neither currently leads its own division. The Bills sit at 5-2 and are coming off a dominant 40-9 victory over Carolina last week. However, they are a game behind an upstart 6-2 Patriots team, who defeated them in Buffalo back in Week 5. The Chiefs, on the other hand, are making up ground from their 2-3 start to the season. They have won three straight, capped off by a 28-7 win over Washington on Monday night. Despite this, they are currently third in the AFC West and have lost head-to-head against the Chargers (also 5-3) in Week 1.
If the Chiefs were to continue the trend of falling short against Buffalo in the regular season, they would enter their bye week with a 5-4 record. There are two ways to look at that. One way is that the Chiefs have been in that position before, as they were 5-4 through nine games in the 2021 season. Coincidentally enough, they were also third in the division at that time, behind the Chargers and Raiders. Kansas City ended up clinching the AFC West in Week 16, got the 2-seed in the AFC, and hosted the AFC Championship Game, beating Buffalo to get there.
A pessimist's view would be to not count on lightning striking twice. While the Chiefs have their toughest test of the season on Sunday, the Chargers may have their easiest, as they head to Nashville to take on a hapless 1-7 Titans team. Meanwhile, the division-leading Broncos (6-2) will travel to Houston to face the Texans. While the Texans and their top-scoring defense present a tougher test than Tennessee, the Broncos’ pass rush against Houston's offensive line lines up in Denver's favor. The Broncos have recorded a league-leading 36 sacks through eight games, while the Texans' offensive line has been among the league's worst for over a year. Denver follows that up with a home game against the 2-5 Raiders on a short week.
To shorten a long story, this regular-season matchup against the Bills carries more importance than those in years past. It is a far cry from last season, when the Chiefs traveled to Orchard Park with an unbeaten (9-0) record. While a loss on Sunday wouldn't be a death sentence, it would increase the likelihood of the Chiefs beginning their playoff run as visitors. The 2023 postseason showed everyone that the Chiefs are more than capable of winning road postseason games; however, having home-field advantage is statistically beneficial.
Last postseason, home teams were 10-2, and both Super Bowl participants had home-field advantage throughout. For further context, three of the Bills' four postseason losses were in Kansas City. A win on Sunday creates a realistic scenario where the Chiefs can still compete for the number-one seed, as the conference-leading Colts will face a more difficult slate of opponents in the back half of the season. A loss, however, would create an uphill battle to win the AFC West, which the Chiefs have done every year since 2016.
Sunday will mark the 10th edition of the premier rivalry of this era between two Super Bowl contenders, two MVP quarterbacks, and two organizations that have done nothing but win over the last six years. Regardless of the outcome this week, there is always a sense of inevitability around this matchup—that it is a prequel to something greater in the playoffs. One team is a dynasty; the other is on a path to complete the final task of their run. When the Chiefs and Bills face off, football nirvana ensues, and Sunday should be no different.