Bills receivers were seriously injured during postseason loss to KC Chiefs

Let’s be very clear about two things. First, the Buffalo Bills were never within a single score of the K.C. Chiefs in last season’s AFC Championship after the first quarter. Second, a lot of players are suffering with injuries by the time the postseason rolls around after a grueling NFL regular season. That said, two Bills wideouts were seriously injured during the team’s 38-24 loss at Arrowhead yet they played anyway, including one of the NFL’s best pass catchers in Stefon Diggs.

It was already public knowledge that Cole Beasley was somehow making his way through a productive postseason with a broken fibula. Yet on Twitter over the weekend, Diggs also admitted that he was dealing with a torn oblique.

Beasley deserves a ton of credit for having a broken fibula yet somehow coming down with 7 of 9 targets for 88 receiving yards against the Chiefs defense in that game. As for Diggs, he caught 6 of 11 targets for 77 yards, a solid amount on the stat sheet but that catch rate is certainly lower than anyone in Buffalo would have liked, and it stands to reason that the Bills would have been a bit more adept at keeping up with Andy Reid’s offense if they had healthy receivers.

Stefon Diggs revealed he had a torn oblique in postseason loss to Chiefs.

That said, once the Chiefs turned things on in the second quarter, after being down 9-0 against the Bills in the first 15 minutes, it wasn’t even a contest. Fans will likely remember successive touchdowns for Mecole Hardman (on a short toss from Patrick Mahomes), and rushing scores for both Darrel Williams and Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Through it all, both Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill were available to convert multiple first downs and a 50-yard play by Hardman also helped set up the second touchdown.

While we’re talking injuries, the Bills receivers deserve credit for playing through injuries—if that’s the goal of the game we’re playing here—but let’s not mince words about the state of the Chiefs up front as well. The team poured on the points on a Bills defense that wasn’t effective in the slightest at slowing them once the game got moving and coaches made adjustments, and that was with Eric Fisher as the only healthy starting lineman left up front.

Every team has injuries, Chiefs included, at that point in the offseason and no one in Buffalo should believe that a healthy Diggs or Beasley would have made the outcome any different at all. And just to make sure we’re being fair, the same can be said for Chiefs fans expecting a different outcome in the Super Bowl in case, say, Mitchell Schwartz was healthy against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.