The Bills Beat the Chiefs. Does It Matter?

A tongue-in-cheek question, with a comparably serious answer

Yeah? Probably a little. Yes. I think it does.

There! We’re done. Off you go.

A funny thing happens sometimes when a team wins a game, which, you’ll recall, is the goal when playing them.

It gets analyzed through a prism of Mattering. And, to be clear, there’s something to that. Not all games are equally important. Your performance against a tanking team is not as indicative of your future success as whether you can beat a playoff team.

“A win’s a win” is true, in the strictest sense, but then it’s also not. You start to get a sense for a team’s mettle in the way they play over the course of the season, and the history of leagues like the NFL, as well as its counterparts, suggests that playing well in the regular season does in fact correlate to playing well in the postseason.

You can also play well in a game you lose and still be encouraged by what you saw. Or, you can “learn to win” by winning a close game in which you didn’t necessarily play your best ball. This is what people refer to when they say things like “facing adversity.”

And I guess that’s what the Bills just did? They learned that they could consistently drive on that heretofore dominant Chiefs defense (who had not given up more than 28 points in 30 games!!) without the help of their second- and third-leading receivers. They avoided a sack all game, and though they didn’t get a truly dominating performance out of Josh Allen, they got the play that mattered: the 4th and 2 run to end it.

So yeah. I do think it would have been bad for the Bills’ season, in some sense, had they lost another heartbreaker to the Chiefs. That doesn’t mean they won’t do it again if and when they meet in January. I’m just saying: it clearly has some impact whether or not you play well for all of the games that precede the knockout games. The question, then, is in the how.

The Bills and Chiefs were the most-watched football game this year. It’s been the best rivalry in the league for the last four years or so, helmed by the game’s two best quarterbacks in Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Each of them does things that no one else in the league, and very few players in the history of the league, have ever been able to do on a football field. For those two alone, it’s appointment viewing.

It also doesn’t hurt that they tend to play very compelling games against one another. They meet in the regular season every year, and more often than not lately, they meet in the playoffs too. It’s pretty much always good.

Quick game log by year:

• Week 6, 2020: Chiefs 26 — Bills 17

• 2020 AFC Championship: Chiefs 38 — Bills 24

• Week 5, 2021: Bills 38 — Chiefs 24

• 2021 AFC Divisional Rd.: Chiefs 42 — Bills 36 (OT) ((yup — that one))

• Week 6, 2022: Bills 24 — Chiefs 20

• No playoff meeting this year; Bills got worked by the Bengals in the Divisional, Chiefs barely squeaked by the Jaguars but went on to win the Super Bowl

• Week 13, 2023: Bills 20 — Chiefs 17

• 2023 AFC Divisional Rd.: Chiefs 27 — Bills 24

• Week 11, 2024: Bills 30 — Chiefs 21

As you can see, the Bills have beaten the Mahomes Chiefs plenty of times, so this shouldn’t be a case where they’ve proven to themselves that they can do it (though it never hurts to pierce the armor, so to speak, especially when the team’s unbeaten). They already know that. In years past, though, it hasn’t amounted to much. They’ve faltered in crunch time, and true to Bills history, in excruciating fashion.

It’s for that reason that this win, in the opinion of fans and pundits alike, doesn’t matter. Which is right, in a sense. Will it matter if the Bills do manage to finally beat the Chiefs in the playoffs this year? Would people point to this game and say: this laid the foundation? I don’t know. Probably not.

It would matter in so far as it happened beforehand, and might, depending how things break, impact seeding and homefield and all that. But as far as quantifying, or even qualifying, the impact, I don’t know that that’s possible. I’m not sure. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

What’s a little frustrating is that everyone would immediately agree it didn’t matter if the Bills were to lose again in the playoffs. Right? Would anyone dispute that? That’s the easy consensus to reach. They lost, so of course last time was meaningless. Just like the time before that.

I myself am extremely susceptible to this. I have said things like, “Can they do it when it counts?” about teams and players as disparate as the Dodgers (yes), Lamar Jackson (not yet), and the Sixers (no).

It’s probably reductive to say this is strictly an American sports fandom thing, but it has to be related that we — unlike, say, European football or rugby — only play a sport for one season, culminating in one playoff, once per year.

As opposed to some kind of points system, wherein a winner is crowned by their performance in the ‘regular’ season, not by their performance in a separate tournament after that season. They have those too, but they’re their own thing.

It’s a very different way of looking at things. I think American sports fans, myself included, would be driven crazy by the whole on-aggregate thing. We crave the showdown. No one would be satisfied by anything less.

You’ll hear people talk, mostly with respect to basketball and baseball, about the devaluation of the regular season. There are other reasons for that, but this is the biggest one. If nothing else really matters until playoff time, then why would I, casual sports fan, care? Why would I watch?

Football is the only major U.S. sport for which that is less true. Fewer games means every one is more important. Just not when it comes to this scenario, where you’ve got this big brother vs. little brother dynamic at play. I totally get it, and then I don’t get it at all.

Funny enough, the flip side here — that the Chiefs lost — is thought in many circles to actually be a good thing. Get it out of the way! Taste some blood in your mouth, y’know? You were always going to drop one. Better now than later.

Don’t be the ‘15 Panthers, or the ‘05 Colts, or the ‘11 Packers, or the ‘09 Colts — the Colts are on this list a lot — and, God forbid, do not be the ‘08 Patriots. Be the ‘06 Colts. Behold!

I’ll point out that in five of the last eleven completed seasons, the team with the longest streak still made the Super Bowl, so that’s probably a good indicator as to their quality. It’s also a good reminder that an 8-game win streak to start the season isn’t that uncommon. You get at least that pretty much every other year.

Now let’s get to those Peyton Manning Colts years we were just talking about.

Hm. Still a lot of Super Bowls here. Again, more than half: 10/16. Pretty good. They also won 4 of those 10, so that’s an improvement. Way to go, mid-00s and late 90s!

Keep going further back, by the way, and this continues to tell a different story than the last few decades. Turns out that a double-digit win streak to start the season can be a good thing. Who knew! Good teams are good, apparently.

To be clear, all of these seasons are different, marked by different circumstances and different players and different bouts of luck, untimely injuries, bad calls, etc. The variables are too numerous to accurately generalize.

Apart from this: generally speaking, if you want to win the whole thing, it helps to win a fair share during the year. Not because it’s a prerequisite, per se, but because it tends to mean you’re pretty good.

Are there exceptions? Sure. Plenty. There is such a thing as a lucky Super Bowl champion. I would present the ‘05 Steelers, or — dare I blaspheme the GOAT? — the ‘01 “Tuck Rule” Patriots. How about those ‘07 Giants?

Those teams did enough. That’s what counts. But they don’t appear on the list above because all of those teams largely scuffled their way through the year, scrounging together enough big moments to get over the top. Sometimes that happens! No shade. A champ’s a champ.

Which leaves us in a pickle. There’s something inherently impenetrable about the question of “what matters,” and that’s well before we start asking that about U.S. politics, or international power struggles, or the human condition. Even in football, it’s thorny.

But that’s what makes it fun, right?

It’s possible that this is more navel-gazey than I once vowed to ever be. It’s also possible that I will look silly if the Bills lose to the Chiefs once again. I’m not sure I’d pick them today. Maybe Andy Reid pulls out the real playbook, Travis Kelce comes back to life, Patrick Mahomes remembers how to put up Mahomes numbers again, and the return of Isiah Pacheco juices the run game. Oh, and Chris Jones gets home this time. The Chiefs have that aura about them, no matter how poorly their offense plays every week. A three-peat remains on the table.

I, however, will be pulling for the long-suffering Bills, and I’ll tell you what really matters. I’ll be jumping through at least one table if they pull it off.

🥊 I can’t say I was locked in for the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight, so I didn’t catch it live, but it seems to have gone about as depressingly as expected. I’m reminded of the Biden debate. Far be it from me to tell Tyson what to do — he’d still knock me out — but maybe you shouldn’t get in the ring at 58. Then again, if someone offers me ~$20 million, I’ll see you in 26 years. Judge not, Mikey. Judge not.

📺 WBD is settling with the NBA, which is a story in itself, but the part that’s making well-deserved headlines is that “Inside the NBA” will remain a part of our lives. Woohoo! We did it! The deal presumably hinged on TNT Sports retaining the rights to produce the show, which lets them keep the crew together. Unclear how much ESPN is paying to air it. My guess is a lot. But that’s not our problem, is it? Good win for the good guys.

🏀 I think my new least favorite thing is when NBA players turn to their coach and frantically demand that they challenge a play. Very tantrum-y. Not into it. Basketball really struggles with officiating from a watchability standpoint, and this is yet another entry.

🏀 Another undefeated fell this week, as the Cleveland Cavaliers came up against the NBA’s Chiefs in the Boston Celtics. I think the Cavs have a lot to be proud of, and a ton more depth than I had given them credit for. I continue to think the team’s ceiling hinges on Evan Mobley to a concerning degree, but I also happen to like Mobley, so maybe I’m just being a nag. In that East? The one with the Sixers? They’ll be fine.

🏉 Anyone else reading about this “LIV-style rebel league” making headlines in rugby?

Ben Wylie

? You out there? I’ll confess to not knowing much about the potential details, beyond the central thesis that by paying 2 to 300 of the world’s best players, you could theoretically field an eight-team super league of sorts. Not sure how that would work, and pretty sure it wouldn’t, but… sounds nice? I think I’m supposed to like this, given it would be based in the U.S., but color me skeptical. I’m partial to this line in the Guardian: “Someone, somewhere has clearly done some extravagant doodling on the back of a beermat.” Doodle on, my dudes.