There's no other way to put this: Sunday's matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills is just about as "primetime" as it gets in today's football world.
The matchup lacks absolutely nothing in terms of entertainment value. You have arguably the league's two best quarterbacks dueling for the AFC's most prized trophy, two head coaches with a long track record of familiarity, and two notoriously hard-nosed and hard-hitting defenses. All in all, it's a rivalry that has placed itself at the top of the NFL's competitive stratosphere but arguably the best in all professional sports.
The best rivalry in the NFL
No one here is a stranger to the spotlight at this point. Both the Chiefs and Bills are the winningest teams in the NFL throughout the last five seasons. They have soaked up a ton of primetime coverage on Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights throughout that timespan and their two signal callers have become the league's standard of quarterbacking greatness along the way. If Mahomes is what other players strive for when it comes to winning, the same can be said for Allen when it comes to production and versatility at the position.
The historical significance of this Bills-Chiefs matchup has been beaten into the ground this week. The comparisons to historic rivalries like Bradshaw vs. Staubach, Marino vs. Kelley, and Manning vs. Brady are all over the internet. The record-setting paces of both of these young yet already historically great quarterbacks who have sprinted out of the gates of their careers have been discussed all over the internet. Even the fanbases, both as passionate as they come in the NFL, have remained at war about incredibly important and fact-driven debates online such as which team the refs may favor more. It's all out there.
In all reality, the rivalry itself since Mahomes and Allen took over their roles looks about as even as it can be from the surface level. In their last 10 matchups, both teams have 5 wins. Both teams have even scored exactly 251 points. But when you dive deeper, it might not be quite as even as you think. While Allen has owned the regular season, Mahomes is 3-0 against the Bills when it counts—in the playoffs. Again, overplayed narrative, but it led me to the question that I've been personally ping-ponging back and forth in my brain all week long: Who has more pressure on them to win on Sunday?
Which QB faces more pressure?
This is somewhat up for debate, but as you look through the factors and history of the matchup, it becomes nearly crystal clear. Sure, Mahomes and the Chiefs face the pressure of making NFL history and becoming the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. Ultimately this is both a physically and mentally exhausting endeavor, but when you stand back and look at how the Chiefs have maneuvered the hurdles they've experienced thus far in their quest for the elusive thre-peat, they stand fairly unscathed at the moment.
Sure, the Chiefs have played a ton of one-score games in the regular season. Sure, there has been somewhat of a revolving door at left tackle, a job that is arguably the most pressure-packed in professional sports. (I mean, protecting the blind side of a half-billion dollar Hall of Fame-bound quarterback can't be a mental walk in the park, right?) There have been injuries. There have been key pieces lost for the season. However, it feels like the Chiefs look more like the Chiefs at this point in the year than they did early on. This is an objectively good thing.
While it would be nice to be able to say the Bills have shown chinks in their armor since their Week 11 victory over Kansas City, that wouldn't be a factual statement. Buffalo also looks dominant, and for Chiefs fans that could be perceived as an objectively bad thing. Still, we're just as dead even in the "How they look now" eye test for both teams as we are in actual results. The mental gridlock remains.
Looking at the mental pressures
Ultimately the game will come down to a few bounces going one team's way or the other. There will be good and bad breaks for each. But who will blink first? Who will make the one mistake that Tony Romo and Jim Nantz astutely claim could "cost [insert name here] the game"? Whose name will be written in that mystery blank space? It'll be the quarterback, or team, that flinches first under the colossal pressure both are under.
The Chiefs come into Arrowhead exhausted. They've played almost an entire extra regular season over the past five years when you account for all of their deep playoff runs. They've been fighting tooth and nail all year long to maintain their greatness, and they're one win away. Except, the one win has to come against the one team that actually beat their starters in the regular season. They're trying to do something that's never been done. The pressure of that task can't even truly be quantified because it's never been done.
Patrick Mahomes, specifically, is under some new types of pressure, having a new child and a new hoard of online haters who are dying to bust out their next incredibly original "refs love the Chiefs" meme or a Mahomes-flopping screen grab. They're looking for the next "gotcha" moment for a quarterback who America loved approximately 15 minutes ago. Mahomes and the Chiefs are truly proving that you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. While these factors ultimately won't be what crumbles football's newest dynasty, it's at least something the players have to deal with.
The Bills, on the other hand, are dealing with something so much tougher mentally than what the Chiefs have on their plate. Buffalo has been the second-winningest team in all of football, AFC or NFC, over the last 5 seasons. Only Kansas City has more wins. Josh Allen has been remarkable. The Bills have been nearly over the hump and winning the franchise's first Lombardi trophy, but at every turn, the Chiefs have stood in their way.
If Allen wants to join the pantheon of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, the one in his way is, again, a QB who is already there. In fact, it's the one making his case as the league's all-time greatest quarterback, period. Three times before, the Bills have faced this demon in different playoff runs with different rosters and come up short. The Chiefs have stolen all of the oxygen in the playoff portion of the rivalry, not even giving Buffalo any air to breathe when they capture a lead with 13 seconds remaining in the game. It is never over, yet it has never ended well for the Bills when it comes to facing the Chiefs in the postseason.
Bills vs Chiefs: Who has more to lose?
Ultimately who has more to lose? If Mahomes and the Chiefs lose this game, sure it's disappointing. It's a small reset, but it doesn't derail the dynasty. Are you telling me that if the Chiefs come back and win a fourth Super Bowl in seven seasons in 2025, they're not still a dynasty? Losing the three-peat would be disappointing, yes. However, it would not be the end of the world. The word "failure" could not realistically creep into the minds of even the Chiefs' biggest critics when the final word is written about this golden era.
As for the Bills? The reality and the irony of a fourth straight loss to Kansas City in the postseason would almost be equally damning for Buffalo and hilarious for those who love the rhyming nature of history. Buffalo couldn't possibly lose 4 consecutive massive playoff games, right? There's no historical precedent for that at all.
Allen and the Bills have a lot on the line, and a loss on Sunday would qualify as much more than a "disappointment" for the team and its franchise QB. Buffalo is approaching "owned" territory when it comes to their one-sided playoff rivalry with Kansas City, with a loss on Sunday creating a permanent stain on his legacy that he likely won't have an opportunity to clean up.
Tedy Bruschi astutely stated on NFL Live on Monday that the Chiefs are great because "they know how to win the game that they're in, not the one that they expected." It's why they have ground out win after win after win in 2024. If there's a time when that mindset and ability—the ability to be perpetually present and stay locked into the moment and game that you're in—is most valuable, it is in the highest pressure and most important games and moments.
The Chiefs have mastered the art of mental toughness in this historic run, and their opponent has been nothing but mentally owned by them in that process. We know what to expect from the Bills, and we know in a way what to expect from the Chiefs. To me, that tells us all we need to know about what to expect from the result of this game.