Circle The Wagons It’ll Be Hard Fought
The AFC Championship game is coming up. The Buffalo Bills at the Kansas City Chiefs. You have to like it when history repeats. This will mark the third time the Bills/Chiefs will meet in the playoffs (see also: Bills and Chiefs have played three lopsided playoff games in 61 years), and the second (kind of) conference championship game.
January 1, 1967 AFL Championship Game: Chiefs 31, Bills 7 (winner went to the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, a.k.a. Super Bowl I).
January 24, 1994 AFC Championship Game: Bills 30, Chiefs 13 (Bills would go on to face the Cowboys in Super Bowl XXVIII for their fourth and final Super Bowl appearance to date).
The Bills are the underdog. That is quite understandable, but the line at the time of this writing is not outrageous: Chiefs (-3.5).
There is a lot of respect given to the Bills this time around in spite of their regular season loss to Kansas City. This is a different team since then, and I think in some ways a lot better team. Now the (-3.5) could be because no one knows which Patrick Mahomes II will take the field. He is less than 100% and obviously that is a factor. He has been cleared of concussion protocol, but there’s also that business about the nebulous turf toe.
My own prediction is that even with Mahomes playing status aside both of these teams, by their own merit, are very good. The Bills and Chiefs match up tightly against each other, and I expect no matter the outcome a very tough, close, and hard fought game. It is one of those situations where I would normally favor the home team given fan enthusiasm and 12th Man factor, but in the world of COVID this isn’t as much as a factor I don’t think as it normally would be. There will be 17,000 fans in the stands, and they won’t all be cheering for the home team. (See also: Buffalo Bills fans heading to Kansas City to tailgate, cheer on their team.) There are plenty of Bills Mafia that have circled their wagons and have descended on Kansas City. The stands, much like the field, will be closely matched.
Circle the wagons, I think this will be a hard fought contest. Let’s see.