A spot in the AFC Championship game is at stake when the Kansas City Chiefs host the Buffalo Bills in a Divisional Round playoff game Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on CBS.
These two teams played in last year’s AFC title game with the Chiefs winning, 38-24, at Arrowhead. It’s a marquee battle of two of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL with the Chiefs led by Patrick Mahomes and the Bills guided by Josh Allen.
Kansas City (13-5) is the second seed in the AFC. It started its road to Super Bowl LVI with a 42-21 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild Card round. The Chiefs overcame a slow start to earn the victory as Mahomes threw five touchdowns and for 404 yards.
While that performance was special, it was the third-seeded Bills (12-6) who had the defining performance of Wild Card weekend. Buffalo became the first team to score touchdowns on every possession, except for ones that ended in kneel-downs, to throttle the New England Patriots, 47-17, in Buffalo. Allen also tossed five touchdowns in the Bills historic win.
These two teams met in Week 5 of the NFL’s regular season. The Bills stomped the Chiefs 38-20 at Arrowhead as Allen threw three more touchdown passes. But no team has been hotter than Kansas City as of late. The Chiefs have won 10 of their last 11 games.
Buffalo leads the all-time series 27-23-1. This will be the fifth time the two teams have met in the playoffs. They have split the previous four meetings.
The winner advances to the AFC Championship game against the winner of the Bengals/Titans game. If the Bengals, the fourth seed, wins, the winner of Chiefs/Bills will host the title game. If the Titans win, they will host.
Next year’s Super Bowl may be the matchup that Missouri bettors will get to participate in.
The oddsmakers mark
The Chiefs are listed as 2.5-point favorites at both Caesars and DraftKings and the over/under total is set at a whopping 55 points.
Caesars has these two powerhouses as the favorites to reach the Super Bowl out of the AFC. The Chiefs are +175 to make the Super Bowl, while the Bills aren’t that far behind at +225.
In the regular-season game, the Chiefs were also 2.5-point favorites. That didn’t turn out so well for the guys in red and white. The regular-season game also went over the listed 56.5-point total.
This season the Chiefs have gone 9-9 against the spread, while the Bills are 10-6-2.
Keep an eye out for any prop bet on passing yards for both Mahomes and Allen. In their three head-to-head meetings, Mahomes has thrown for 225, 325 and 272 yards, while Allen has thrown for 315, 287 and 122.
Chief cover
Incredibly, the Chiefs have been favored in their last nine playoff games (and now make it 10) dating back to 2018.
In those nine games, Kansas City has covered the spread six times, lost twice outright and didn’t cover the 9.5-point spread in a 22-17 win over Cleveland in last year’s Wild Card round.
Home sweet home
Let’s talk home-field advantage.
In the last 12 Divisional Round games in the NFL playoffs, the home team is 10-2. The only two losers were the Saints to the Bucs (last year’s eventual Super Bowl champs) and the Steelers lost to Jacksonville in the 2018 playoffs.
Talking it over/under
The 55 points set as the under/over total is the biggest of any of the four NFL playoff games this weekend by more than a touchdown.
Both teams are offensive juggernauts. The Bills averaged 28.4 points a game, third-most in the NFL, while the Chiefs were next up at 28.2.
Defensively, the Bills gave up the least points in the NFL, just 17 a game, while Kansas City allowed 21.4.
Chief games have gone over 55 points eight times out of their 18 contests, three times out of their last five. For the Bills, its games went over 55 points seven times, but only one time in its last five games did it go over – that was the Wild Card win over the Patriots.
The x-factor
The forecast in Kansas City for Sunday night calls for a low of 26 degrees with light wins and very little chance of rain. The oddsmakers expect a lot of points on the board. 55 points is a big number when you think about it.
Buffalo winning the regular-season game bodes well for the Bills, but Kansas City has played much better since then. With all this talk about touchdowns and points, don’t be surprised if it comes down to a field goal at the end.
