KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Patrick Mahomes threw for 245 yards and a touchdown, ran through the Buffalo defense for two more scores, and scored a touchdown to help defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 32-29 on Sunday night. The Eagles relied on their defense for the Giants to reach the Super Bowl for the third consecutive season.
Now, the defending AFC champions will try to do something no other NFL team has done: win all three.
The Chiefs will find a familiar foe in the Eagles, who they defeated for the first title in this run two years ago. Philadelphia earned a 55-23 victory over the Washington Commanders on Sunday to earn a shot at the Champs on Feb. 9 in New Orleans.
This is the fourth time since January 2021 that the Chiefs have ended the Bills’ season in the playoffs. And like all the rest, it came after a heavyweight battle between two of the top teams in the AFC, one that ended tied 29-all after Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen set up Curtis Samuel a little too high in the back of the end zone. got to. Drama at Arrowhead Stadium.
Mahomes was simply ineffective, though. He completed four consecutive passes on the ensuing possession, setting up Harrison Bakker’s go-ahead field goal with 3:33 left and putting the Bills in another do-or-die situation in Kansas City.
Allen was going to run his drive for a first down, but his next two throws were batted at the line of scrimmage and fell incomplete. He hit Amari Cooper for a short gain on third down, and the Bills elected to go for it – they were 4 of 5 on fourth down at that point – and the Kansas City Blitz sent Allen on a prayer. Forced something Dalton Kincaid couldn’t do. Catch.
The Chiefs took over, picked up a couple of first downs and began to celebrate once again.
Kareem Hunt had a touchdown run and Xavier Worthy had six catches for 85 yards and a score for Kansas City, which became the fourth franchise to reach three consecutive Super Bowls with its ninth consecutive playoff win.
Allen threw for 237 yards and two scores for Buffalo. James Cook ran for 85 yards and two touchdowns of his own.
The Bills have not been to a Super Bowl since four straight runs during the 1990–93 season.
The Bills and Chiefs have become well acquainted over the years, meeting seven times since Kansas City defeated Buffalo in perfect circumstances — the AFC title game at Arrowhead Stadium — to reach the Super Bowl in January 2021.
Buffalo won all four games in the regular season. Kansas City had won all three that mattered in the postseason.
And that familiarity, along with the fact that Bills coach Sean McDermott once worked for Chiefs counterpart Andy Reid, was as evident as the game itself. The Bills simply refused to bother the Chiefs with Travis Kelce beating them, like he did against the Texans in the Divisional Round, while Kansas City was braced for Allen’s tendency to take off.
It was the Chiefs who took a 21-16 lead into the locker room after a topsy-turvy first half.
Mahomes and Hunt ran for scores and Worthy had a touchdown reception as the teams traded leads. Cook reached the end zone for Buffalo, and a spectacular touchdown catch by Mack Hollins just before halftime kept the Bills in the game.
It remained a game of inches in the second half: Cook barely got across the goal line for a touchdown, the Chiefs ran Allen inches shy of the marker on fourth down, Mahomes bulldozed into the end zone for a score, And the Bills responded with a 70-yard drive in which their MVP-candidate quarterback hit Samuel on fourth-and-goal to tie it at 29-all.
Fifty-three minutes and 45 seconds were mooted. It all came down to the final 6:45 of the game.
Sports injuries
Bills cornerback Christian Benford was fouled in the first quarter and was declared with a concussion. He spent the week in concussion protocol before being cleared to play on Sunday.
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The Chiefs are headed to the Big Easy to face the Eagles in the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. In the first game, he kicked a 27-yard field goal to rally from a 24–14 halftime deficit to a 38–35 victory.