How Kansas City Chiefs vs. Buffalo Bills became AFC’s best postseason rivalry, bar none
Bursts of intense postseason rivalries helped write AFL and AFC history.
The Steelers and Raiders met in the playoffs for five straight years in the 1970s. Patriots-Colts games provided can’t-miss quarterback battles between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, who continued those duels with the Broncos.
But for longevity and drama, no other meeting matches the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Buffalo Bills.
On Sunday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, they clash with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line for the fourth time — the most among teams now in the AFC.
The rivalry has spanned generations, from the upstart AFL days of the 1960s to the Bills’ run of four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1990s ... and now with their fourth playoff meeting in five years.
Beating the Bills in the playoffs three times in five years has fueled the Chiefs’ current dynasty. But the Bills have won the last four regular-season games in Kansas City.
“We’ve been able to beat them in the playoffs, and they’ve gotten us in the regular season,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “If you look at the games, every game’s close, so it just comes down to a play here or there that kind of usually makes the impact on the outcome.”
The timeline of Chiefs-Bills postseason battles includes classic games and Hall of Fame talent and brilliant coaching. Here are the teams’ shared milestone moments through football history:
1966: A Super outcome
By 1966, the Bills had become the AFL’s dominant team.
Winners of the 1964 and 1965 AFL championships, they were led by quarterback, Jack Kemp, who had been named to the Pro Bowl team for each of the previous six seasons, including two with the Chargers. Entering this game, he owned a 7-1-1 record as a starter against the Chiefs.
The stakes for this AFL title showdown were enormous. For the first time, the winner would meet the NFL champion in a game unofficially called the Super Bowl, and the Chiefs’ confidence swelled during the week.
“I’m not going to get so emotional that I will predict we will win that game against Buffalo,” Chiefs coach Hank Stram told a crowd of 1,400 at a send-off luncheon at the Muehlebach Hotel in KC. “But we’re going to play a helluva game.”
Stram called it. In a chilly rain at Buffalo, the Chiefs dominated 31-7. Future Hall of Famers Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan and Johnny Robinson led the defense. Mike Garrett rushed for two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to put the game away.
After the game, the team headed to a conference room at their Holiday Inn to watch the Green Bay Packers defeat the Dallas Cowboys for the NFL title and set up the first NFL-AFL championship game.
Upon approaching Kansas City, the Chiefs’ charter circled for 15 minutes because some 12,000 fans had swarmed Municipal Airport. The Chiefs would play on pro football’s biggest stage in two weeks. But all Len Dawson wanted to do at that point was get some rest.
“I feel like an old man,” the 31-year-old Dawson said after the game. “I never felt such tremendous pressure. I’m bruised all over. I’m ready to lie down and rest for three days.”
1991, 1993: Buffalo’s stampede through AFC
In 1991, the Chiefs recorded one of their most memorable regular-season victories, defeating the Bills 33-6 on Monday Night Football.
The Bills got payback in the 1991 Divisional Round with a 37-14 outcome that was never close.
Two years later, the teams met in the AFC Championship Game in a showdown of future Hall of Fame quarterbacks Joe Montana and Jim Kelly.
Danan Hughes was a Chiefs rookie wide receiver and return specialist then, and his first memory of the day was being greeted by the seasonal conditions: a 15-degree wind chill.
“Coming out of the locker room, I felt like we were the Jamaican bobsled team in Cool Runnings,” Hughes said. “That was a different cold up there.”
But it was the same Bills, who had won the previous three AFC championships. The Chiefs had a chance to close a two-touchdown gap just before halftime, but Montana’s pass to running back Kimble Anders slipped through his hands for an interception.
Montana, in his first year with the Chiefs, was knocked out of the game early in the third quarter with a concussion, and the Bills went on to a comfortable 30-13 victory. Buffalo’s four straight conference championships — led by Kelly and other future Hall of Famers Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas and Bruce Smith — is a feat unequaled in NFL history.
It also was something of a last postseason hurrah for both teams. The Bills didn’t get past the Wild Card Round for another two decades. The Chiefs, who seemed to be just getting started in the era of general manager Carl Peterson, coach Marty Schottenheimer and players like Derrick Thomas and Will Shields, wouldn’t win another playoff game until 2015.
“Things had started turning around here with Marty and Carl and getting DT,” said Hughes, now the analyst for the Chiefs’ Radio Network. “Then I got drafted here and the team had immediate success, you just kind of felt like this was going to be par for the course. Maybe not AFC Championship Games every year, but we’re going to have success. And I never won another playoff game.”
2020-present: Dynastic Chiefs
These days, it’s not the NFL postseason without a Chiefs-Bills showdown.
All recent playoff games have fallen in the Chiefs’ favor. The record shows a lopsided series, but it doesn’t feel that way. Chiefs-Bills games have been that competitive.
Even in the first meeting of the Andy Reid/Sean McDermott, Mahomes/Allen era — which turned out to be a 14-point margin in the 2020 AFC title game — the Bills jumped to a 9-0 lead.
Games since then include the Chiefs’ 42-36 win in overtime in the 2021 AFC Divisional Round, known in Kansas City as the “13-second game,” and last season’s 27-24 escape in Buffalo, sealed when Bills placekicker Tyler Bass missed a 44-yard field goal in the final two minutes.
Also, Allen has never lost a regular-season game at Arrowhead (3-0). In all games in the Mahomes-Allen era, the series stands 4-4.
“When you look the great rivalries of the NFL ... it comes with playing each other every year in the regular season, it comes with playing in the playoffs,” Mahomes said.
The Bills, with five straight AFC East championships, remain the most consistent threat to the Chiefs, and Kansas City has been Buffalo’s constant source of frustration.
“We know what they are,” Allen said of the Chiefs. “We have to beat them to get past them.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 11:06 AM.