Sean McDermott and the Buffalo Bills waited exactly 365 days to get their revenge on the Kansas City Chiefs. Buffalo spent that year building a team specifically to overthrow the Chiefs and claim the throne atop the AFC for themselves and their mafia.
They did everything right, too. They dispatched the Chiefs in Week 5, winning by three possessions in a laugher en route to their second-straight AFC East crown and beat up on the Patriots for 60 minutes last week, asserting their division dominance with a 30-point win.
The broad shoulders of Josh Allen were prime to carry the Bills past Kansas City once more after he threw his second go-ahead touchdown with just 13 seconds remaining on the clock. Just 13 seconds.
The Bills had a 94.35% win probability when Tyler Bass lined up for the kickoff and sent it flying through end zone. It was the safe play, certainly. Returner Byron Pringle had two kick returns longer than 30 yards when the two teams played earlier this year and the Bills wanted to keep the ball out of his hands.
The only issue is the Bills should've been more focused on draining each of those final 13 seconds as quickly as possible. Allowing the Chiefs to take a touchback gives them a free 25 yards without losing any time. If Bass kicks it short of the end zone, say inside the 10 or even the 15-yard-line, Pringle would have needed to use some of that precious time to move the ball to where the drive started.
The Bills were so desperate to keep the ball out of Pringle's hands and risk a long return, which not only is poor self-scouting — the Bills allowed just 18 yards per kickoff return this year, second-best in the NFL — it's poor logic. Would you rather your opponent have to carry the ball 65 yards with the clock ticking or just 45? With all their timeouts remaining, the Chiefs ate up 44 yards up the middle on just two plays, taking only 10 seconds off the clock.
“Yeah, we talked about a lot of things,” McDermott said when asked if the team considered kicking the ball short of the end zone. “I’m just gonna leave it at the execution and that starts with me.”
Unfortunately, the execution for the Bills didn't suffer only on special teams:
We can talk about clock management to death but how does the #Bills defense not in any way have an answer for “Travis Kelce runs in a straight line” pic.twitter.com/RBAO7p5uJs
— AJ Feldman (@AJFeldmanTV) January 24, 2022
“How do you let him get that wide open?” Jim Nantz pondered while staring at the replay of Mahomes' second completion on the game-winning drive.
“It's because you're protecting the end zone,” Tony Romo replied, before adding: “For some reason.”
It's understandable the Bills wanted to do everything in their power to keep the Chiefs out of the end zone, but allowing these kinds of completions simply did not help their cause. Tyreek Hill did burn them for a 64-yard touchdown only minutes earlier, but the goal for the Kansas City offense was closer to the 30-yard-line than it was the end zone.
Funnily enough, trailing by three with under a minute to go in the postseason isn't all that unfamiliar to Patrick Mahomes and company. They were in the exact same situation during the 2018 AFC Championship Game. However, with 39 seconds remaining, the Patriots forced Treman Smith to field the kickoff at the 5-yard-line and he chewed up seven seconds while returning the ball to the 31-yard-line.
The Chiefs did force overtime on a Harrison Butker field goal, but lost the overtime coin toss and allowed Tom Brady to march down the field and score the decisive touchdown on their next possession.
In fact, since 2001, the Chiefs are the only team to receive the ball with under a minute to go, down three, and force overtime in a playoff game. They've now done it twice under the guidance of Mahomes while the rest of the NFL is 0-7.
It's become cliché to talk about how important special teams are in the modern NFL. With high-powered offenses and kick returns seemingly scripted out of games, the third phase is often the forgotten one. Yet, despite all the drama across each game this weekend, special teams were key to each team's win. Three teams won on last-second field goals, the Packers lost in part to a blocked field goal and later a blocked punt that resulted in the only 49ers touchdown and the Chiefs prevailed thanks to questionable strategy by the Bills.
Andy Reid will now lead his team to the AFC Championship for the fourth consecutive time. It will be the second time he's led a franchise this far in four-straight years, dating back to his run with the Eagles nearly two decades ago.
The Bills and their fans will grumble about the overtime rules for the next few months, but had McDermott, an assistant of Reid's on those Eagles teams, elected to just kick the ball short of the end zone, the Chiefs would have had just one play to get into field goal range. Because, as it turns out, two was too many.
