The greatest weekend in NFL playoff history has been capped off by an overtime thriller, where the Kansas City Chiefs stunned the Buffalo Bills to make it back to the AFC Championship Game for the fourth straight year.
It ended 42-36, after quarterback Patrick Mahomes found tight end Travis Kelce in the endzone on the opening drive – once again raising questions over the NFL’s overtime rules, with Buffalo never even getting a chance to touch the ball after the coin toss.
It was 23-14 in Kansas City’s favour with a minute left in the third quarter, before the game exploded.
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First, Bills quarterback Josh Allen found Gabriel Davis for a 75-yard score, before each team thought they’d locked up a win multiple times in the dying minutes.
Davis scored his third touchdown of the game to give the Bills a 29-26 lead with two minutes left, only for Mahomes to connect with Tyreek Hill for a 64-yard score in a drive that took just 52 seconds.
But the Bills wouldn’t be stopped, Davis grabbing a playoff record fourth touchdown with just 13 seconds left on the clock – and Buffalo dreaming of hosting the Cincinatti Bengals next week.
Instead, Mahomes zipped in two quick passes – one to Hill for 19 yards and one to Kelce for 25 – in just 10 seconds, before Harrison Butker’s field goal sent the game to overtime as the clock hit zero.
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Unfortunately from there, it felt like whoever won the overtime coin toss would win the game – and the moment the flip fell in the Chiefs’ favour, the Bills’ betting odds blew out to a staggering $2.75.
The oft-criticised rules mean that if the team that receives the kick-off scores a touchdown, the game ends immediately, rather than giving the other team a chance to equalise.
Ex-players, media, and fans alike were universal in their panning of the rules – which will hopefully be looked at in the off-season.
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“It was a heck of a game, Josh played his arse off, pardon my language,” Mahomes said afterwards.
“It was a great game between two great football teams and at the end of the day, guys like Tyreek and Travis made the plays that won us the game.”
It was a rematch of last year’s AFC Championship Game, which the Chiefs won comfortably.
“We’re going to play this team a lot of times in games like this,” Mahomes said of the Bills.
“With that quarterback, with that coaching staff and the players they have, there’s going to be a lot of battles.”
Despite the sour finish, it was an absolutely captivating contest on what was an extraordinary weekend of playoff football – with all three of the other games finishing via last-second field goals.
Kansas City will host Cincinatti this week while the 49ers play the Rams, with the winners facing off in the Super Bowl.
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