Kansas City, Missouri — In a match where no one was giving up or failing to score points, it was the toss of a coin that was decisive.
Patrick Mahomes found Travis Kelce in the far corner of the promised zone early in overtime, and the Kansas City Chiefs rallied to beat the Buffalo Bills 42-36 on Sunday in a memorable playoff gunnery matchup.
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“Everything worked out for us this time,” said Mahomes, who will be contesting his fourth straight AFC final.
The lead changed hands three times in just the last two minutes of regular time in this divisional matchup.
Then Harrison Butker, who had missed a field goal and an extra point, hit from 49 yards for Kansas City as time expired to force overtime.
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The Chiefs won on the coin toss and sped into the opposite field against the NFL’s highest-ranked defense, which by then was nonetheless absolutely molten.
Mahomes’ final delivery put the Chiefs back in the AL final. They will face the Cincinnati Bengals next Sunday night, in search of a ticket to the Super Bowl.
“When you have two teams scoring, it’s disgusting that you don’t get a chance to attack for a tie,” Mahomes said of what happened with Buffalo. “But all you can do is play by the rules that are out there, and that’s what we did.”
Mahomes finished with 378 passing yards and three touchdown passes, including a 64-yarder to Tyreek Hill during the electrifying final minutes of regulation. For the second year in a row, the Chiefs eliminated the Bills at Arrowhead Stadium.
“The guys never wavered,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “We are talking here about an epic match. Well, that’s how the players took it. They had great respect for Buffalo and knew this was going to be a battle, so they kept fighting.”
Josh Allen did everything humanly possible to prevent it. He threw a touchdown pass for Gabriel Davis to score the go-ahead touchdown with 1:54 remaining in regulation.
With 13 seconds left, he posted his fourth career playoff touchdown pass, again with Davis.
Allen finished with 329 receiving yards. Davis totaled eight receptions for 201 yards.
But the Bills, who had blown away the Chiefs in October, suffered their ninth straight road loss in the postseason. His last victory in the playoffs and in a foreign field dates back to the AL final after the 1992 campaign.
In a postseason game that will go down in the history books, the Bills and Chiefs engaged in a 58-minute back-and-forth.
The remaining two minutes of regular time, as well as overtime, were something else, unforgettable.