MAHOMES HAS ONE POSTSEASON RIVAL — TOM BRADY — BUT FORGET ALLEN
It’s useless comparing Chiefs-Bills games as the NFL’s biggest conflict, and until a team stops missing field goals and makes critical receptions, the two-time MVP has his eye on Sunday in Baltimore
He stared quietly at the field, not smirking and not smiling, just waiting for the thumbs-up to Baltimore. If we wait for Super Bowls to ultimately compare Patrick Mahomes in history, guess who has the most postseason victories before age 30, passing Tom Brady among quarterbacking masters? It’s wise to wait with him.
How sad to compare any game between Mahomes and Josh Allen as the new version of Brady and Peyton Manning. You know the Kansas City Chiefs will win, 3-0 in the faux rivalry, and that the Buffalo Bills will lose. They aren’t heavyweight champions until Allen proves he can survive the silent assassin on the bench. But he had opportunities and was failed by teammates Sunday night — a late game-tying field goal by Tyler Bass, whose attempt went WIDE RIGHT, a familiar devastating song in western New York — along with missed catches by wide receivers. In the final minutes, guess who messed up.
With Khalil Shakir wide open in the end zone, ready to give the Bills a lead, Allen missed him. This is a throw that Mahomes makes as an all-time clutch performer. Allen? “Didn’t have great pocket movement. Didn’t have a big throw,” he said. The failures were enough to let Mahomes finally leap on the sideline, finishing his sixth consecutive trip to the AFC championship game, and it was enough to save Taylor Swift from watching Travis Kelce’s brother, Jason, dancing half-naked in a suite at Highmark Stadium. The Chiefs play the Ravens on the road again, with Mahomes facing Lamar Jackson in a better mauler clash, while the Bills continue to suffer as a 2020s team dealing with 1990s horrors.
“It sucks. Losing sucks,” Allen said after the 27-24 defeat. “Here, there — losing sucks. At the end of a season, there’s one happy team. It sucks.”
Don’t take the easy way and blame only Bass. The Bills would lose in overtime, back in Missouri or in Orchard Park. The Chiefs win even when overtime rules don’t have to be changed. Doesn’t matter. At least Manning won a few over Brady, though not enough, and managed two Super Bowls. The Bills? Will management take a close look at coach Sean McDermott, who used Damar Hamlin — why, to celebrate life? — in a failed fake punt? The ongoing tale is painful.
“I feel terrible. I love this team,” said Bass, who missed from 44 yards, near the distance failed by Scott Norwood in Super Bowl XXV. “This hurts. This hurts bad.”
So it’s Mahomes who hit the highway for the first time in the NFL playoffs — not counting the 2021 Super Bowl, when he lost to Brady in a mostly empty stadium in Tampa — and decided to have a road trip. It wasn’t a fun regular season, with the Chiefs finishing third in the AFC seedings, and he threw for all-time lows in yards per game while committing the most giveaways because receivers dropped balls at historic levels. “I just don’t like losing,” he said. “Anybody can be frustrated when they lose. It’s just about how you respond.”
You saw it. He threw two touchdown passes and dealt with only one flub-up, when receiver Mecole Hardman Jr. fumbled the ball out of the end zone. When he won once again, fans threw snowballs at him, and he raced to the locker room. Whatever we’re calling his tight end — Kelce says his name is pronounced without a long “e,” meaning Taylor has a one-syllable last name in marriage — they hooked up for two touchdowns and passed Brady and Rob Gronkowski atop playoff pass-catching lists. Travis even had fun with fans who shoveled snow from the stadium, saying, “Bills Mafia at home always will give you that much more momentum, especially if they’re shoveling snow two days before for an extra $20 an hour.” But it didn’t take long for Jason, retired from the Eagles for now, to act like another Philadelphia shirtless idiot while holding a beer can.
“There’s your brother-in-law, right behind you,” said Tony Romo, screwing up again on CBS.
And Travis? He blew a kiss to Swift after a touchdown and waved snobbishly at the same fans. At least Taylor was nice, blowing her own kiss at fans who said, “Bills by a billion.” She wore an $1,800 jacket in Chiefs colors with a scarlet beanie and gooey red lipstick.
This is what it’s like to be a two-time champion with attention on all forums. Can they win again? Without a week off, unlike Baltimore and San Francisco, it will be difficult. For now, Mahomes reminded us of “the fun” he has playing the game.
“When I go against Josh, the games always go down to the end. That’s the competitor he is, the player he is. Same with Joe (Burrow) and Lamar, all these guys,” he said. “I know how much fire they have and how they don’t give up until the end. I appreciate this stuff. These are the games I watched growing up — the great quarterbacks going up against each other, great organizations. This is what I remember. And I hope we’re making those memories for other little kids growing up and watching football.”
He makes it sound so easy, while his counterpart can’t stop uttering “sucks.” Another week, another Taylor sighting in another small town, and here we have another joyride for a man who remains a champion. If he hates losing, should I issue one more reminder that he and the Chiefs are bordering on a dynasty?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.