Mentions the Chiefs several times, so figured you guys would want to see it.
The Bills are the team no one, including the Chiefs wants to see in the playoffs
Forget the Ravens. Forget the Bucs. The team you don't want to play in January is the Buffalo Bills.
With all due respect to the Packers, the AFC's No. 2 overall seed may very well be the second-best team in the NFL.
The Bills crushed the Dolphins 56-26 in a game Miami needed for their playoff hopes. And maybe we didn't see a 30-point win coming, but it's in line with what the Bills have been doing to teams in recent weeks.
Buffalo has had a top-five scoring defense since Week 12. If not for the Hail Murray they would have finished on a 10-game win streak dating back to before Halloween.
And then there's Josh Allen. The third-year franchise quarterback has, in consecutive weeks, set the Bills single-season records for passing touchdowns and passing yards.
What I love most about the Bills is that they aren't even letting teams hang around. Since that Week 10 loss to the Cardinals, not a single team has finished within a possession of the Bills.
I go back to that Week 6 loss to the Chiefs. Head coach Sean McDermott picked his poison and let the Chiefs' run game beat them up so that Patrick Mahomes wouldn't. Kansas City rushed for 245 yards and Mahomes passed for 225 yards.
But with about 5 minutes left in the game and down 23-17, the Bills forced a Clyde Edwards-Helaire fumble that would have given the Bills the ball at the Kansas City 31.
They would have had a chance to take the lead against the Chiefs there. But instead, the replay showed Edwards-Helaire's knee was down just before the ball came out. Mahomes took the Chiefs down for the field goal and that provided the final margin of victory.
Allen is a better quarterback today than he was then. The defense is playing far better ball. And after sweeping the Patriots and beating the likes of the Seahawks and Steelers, the Bills now know how to win big games.
Yahoo: Yes, the red-hot Buffalo Bills can upset the Kansas City Chiefs. Mahomes passing the torch?
It’s hard to say a 25-year-old could be passing the torch. Maybe it’s more fair to wonder if Patrick Mahomes will be sharing the torch with Josh Allen.
We’ve heard for so long this season that the Kansas City Chiefs will win the Super Bowl that it seems weird to suggest anyone else can win. Suggesting the Chiefs might not be the best team seems even crazier.
If you’ve seen Allen and the Buffalo Bills play lately, it doesn’t seem so weird.
Buffalo is averaging 47.3 points and 487.7 yards its last three games. Other than a Hail Mary loss against the Arizona Cardinals, the Bills haven’t lost since Oct. 19. On Sunday they put up 56 points on the Miami Dolphins, who have a good defense and were playing for a playoff spot, and did so with Allen playing only the first half.
While we’ve heard about the Chiefs’ prowess all season — and it’s well deserved — many of the Bills’ stats look quite similar (these don’t count the Chiefs’ Week 17 numbers, when they rested starters):
Points per game: Bills 31.3, Chiefs 30.1
Yards per game: Chiefs 425.7, Bills 396.4
Points per game allowed: Chiefs 21.6, Bills 23.4
Yards per game allowed: Bills 352.5, Chiefs 354.5
Yards per play: Chiefs 6.3, Bills 6.1
Yards allowed per play: Bills 5.5, Chiefs 5.6
Net yards per play: Chiefs +0.7, Bills +0.6
Passer rating: Mahomes 108.2, Allen 107.2
The edges the Chiefs have are small, and once you factor in the Bills’ improvement over the last half of the season, you can make a reasonable argument for Buffalo being the NFL’s best team heading into the playoffs.
Allen’s huge jump has been the headline to the Bills’ season. Mahomes once looked like a lock to win MVP, and now he might finish third behind Allen and presumptive winner Aaron Rodgers. Allen has 15 touchdowns, two interceptions and a 117.5 passer rating over Buffalo’s last five games, and their schedule included some good defenses. Some of his throws seem impossible, Mahomes-esque even. Mahomes is a great quarterback already, but there’s no reason to believe Allen can’t at least be a reasonable facsimile for many years to come.
The Chiefs are still the favorite to win it all this postseason. They are a fantastic team with a future Hall of Fame quarterback and have a lot more playoff experience than the Bills. The Chiefs also have the No. 1 seed and the lone bye in the AFC. That gives the top team an enormous edge in the playoffs, which will end up being the biggest drawback of the expanded playoff field.
The Chiefs also beat the Bills decisively on Oct. 19. Allen had a rough day. The Bills had just 206 yards. The Chiefs had 466 yards. The final score of 26-17 doesn’t reflect the blowout the game really was. Kansas City has shown it can beat Buffalo, and we can’t be too sure if Buffalo can return the favor.
However, even if the Chiefs are the best team in the NFL, the best team often doesn’t make it to the finish line. The 2019 Baltimore Ravens were the best team in the regular season and it didn’t matter. They lost their first playoff game. There are plenty of other teams that were the best in the NFL in their respective season and didn’t make the Super Bowl, like the 1998 Minnesota Vikings, 2005 Indianapolis Colts and 2011 Green Bay Packers. The unpredictable nature of the playoffs also applies to the Bills. Just because they are very good doesn’t mean they can’t be beaten by the Indianapolis Colts on wild-card weekend or whoever they’d play after that.
It will take a great effort to beat the Chiefs. But they are beatable. Especially if they face the Bills.
