by TYLER HATHAWAY
One of the NFL’s biggest yearly draws is this weekend when the Buffalo Bills host the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. The two teams have met twice in four of the past five seasons and each enter this week’s game coming off of dominating wins. Quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen will meet for the tenth time in their careers on Sunday. Here’s the breakdown:
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (5-3/AFC West)
vs.
BUFFALO BILLS (5-2/AFC East)
Sunday, Highmark Stadium, 4:25 pm
Storyline #1: Mahomes/Allen X
Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and Buffalo’s Josh Allen will meet for the tenth time in their careers on Sunday, including postseason games. This will be the sixth time the superstar quarterbacks face each other in the regular season, with Allen picking up wins in four of the five games. Mahomes has won all four playoff games.
No two quarterbacks have played each other more often since Allen entered the league in 2018. They have often drawn comparisons to the storied rivalry between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, who played each other 17 times in their careers. The key difference? Brady won the overall series 11-6, but lost the playoff series 3-2. Mahomes currently leads in both.
Storyline #2: What happened to Buffalo’s passing game?
The Bills’ passing attack has taken a dip in effectiveness in its past two games. Allen is only completing 60% of his passes in the last two games while averaging 171.5 yards per game through the air. In the first give games of the season, Allen’s completion percentage was 70% and his yards per game was 243.4.
The yards can be explained. The offense as a whole didn’t seem to have the juice against the Falcons in Week 6, and last week’s game against Carolina was the James Cook show, with the back posting a career-high 216 yards in a blowout win in which Buffalo didn’t need to throw the ball much. But the completion percentage is a tougher one to assess, as in both games it seemed like Allen was just missing throws.
Whether it is just miscommunication with the receivers, or maybe just a dip in play by Allen is unknown. What is known, however, is that the passing attack will need to play better against a Kansas City defense that is currently ranked fourth in total defense.
Storyline #3: Kansas City on fire
The Chiefs have been playing a dominating stretch of football after starting the season of 0-2. Kansas City has won five of its past six games and is averaging 29.3 points per game on offense while allowing only 14 points per game over that stretch.
Mahomes has skyrocketed to the MVP favorite over the span, throwing for 275.6 yards per game and 15 touchdowns over the stretch. Part of the reason for this spike of play is because the Chiefs got their two best wide receivers back, Xavier Worthy and Rashee Rice, from injury and suspension respectively. Most impressively, three of the Chiefs’ wins in their past six games were against teams that made the divisional round (at least) in 2024.
Key to the game #1: Let James Cook
With the Buffalo passing attack struggling as of late, the offense on Sunday needs to run through James Cook. The fourth-year running back is coming off of the best game of his career against Carolina in which he ran for over 200 yards and two touchdowns without seeing the field in the fourth quarter.
In games that Cook totals over 100 yards this season, the Bills are 5-0. If the Bills want to earn their sixth win of the season, they must feed Cook early and often against a Kansas City defense that allows 100 rushing yards per game.
Key to the game #2: Bills need to get Mahomes on the ground
One of the biggest reasons that the Bills haven’t been able to get past Kansas City in the postseason is because of the inability to sack Mahomes. It’s why the Bills went out and got Von Miller after the 13 seconds game, and why they went out this past offseason and got Joey Bosa and Michael Hoecht. Ultimately, Buffalo has never been able to slow down Mahomes enough when it really mattered.
While this is a regular season game, and not a playoff game, it is still something that Buffalo needs to do to win on Sunday. Not only would sacking Mahomes help their odds this week, but if it gets to a situation in which the Bills and Chiefs meet once again in the playoffs, they can look back on the success they had in their regular season matchup on getting Mahomes to the ground. Win or lose, bringing Mahomes to the turf will be a positive sign that the changes on the defensive line are working.
X-Factor: Bills defensive end Greg Rousseau
In a similar vein, Greg Rousseau needs to have a monster game on Sunday to give Buffalo it’s best shot. “Groot” had a quiet start to the season, with only five tackles and half of a sack in the team’s first four games, but has recently come on strong, posting 10 tackles and two sacks in the past three games.
With a Chiefs offense that has been borderline unstoppable in the past six weeks of the season coming to town, Rousseau needs to be as disruptive as possible. Not only sacks, but just generating pressure or some tackles for losses will be needed by the Buffalo front to help the Bills win on Sunday. And with defensive tackle Ed Oliver out for the foreseeable future with a biceps injury, the weight falls on Rousseau’s shoulders to have a big game.
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