The Buffalo Bills pulled off a win in an instant classic on Sunday, defeating the Baltimore Ravens 27-25 in the Divisional Round in a game that came down to the final minutes. The win sets up yet another playoff matchup between the Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs, who have eliminated the Bills three times since 2020.
The Bills will certainly have revenge on their minds coming into this game because of that lopsided playoff record, and they will need all hands on deck to go into Arrowhead Stadium and knock off the top seed. During the Ravens game, Bills safety Taylor Rapp was carted off with a hip injury and cornerback Christian Benford also went down with an injury. Rapp is currently listed as day-to-day and Benford is in the concussion protocol, according to Katherine Fitzgerald of The Buffalo News.
The Bills will need both Rapp and Benford out there against a Chiefs team that doesn't have a ton of pass catching weapons, but Patrick Mahomes is more than capable of picking on any weaknesses in an opposing secondary. If either Rapp or Benford is forced to sit out of this game, those weaknesses will pop up more and more.
Bills looking to back up regular season win vs. Chiefs

In what is becoming a bit of a theme over the course of the careers of Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, the Bills beat the Chiefs in the regular season in 2024 thanks to some late-game heroics. Even though the head-to-head win wasn't enough to get the Bills the No. 1 seed, the Bills will be able to take some confidence from that one.
On paper, this is a great opportunity for the Bills to finally get over that Chiefs hump in the playoffs and advance to the Super Bowl for the first time in the Allen era. This Chiefs team, despite its sparkling record, has looked vulnerable for most of the season and even looked beatable in the Divisional Round against the Houston Texans. The Bills, meanwhile, have been a buzzsaw on offense for most of the season and have seemed impossible to stop at times.
The Bills have shown that they have what it takes defensively to trouble Kansas City, and the Chiefs don't have the receiving weapons on the outside to make the Bills pay all that much even if they're banged up in the secondary.
The Buffalo offensive line could be the deciding factor in this game. If the Bills can run the ball and control the clock on the ground, it will keep Mahomes on the sideline and allow the Bills to control the tempo of the game. It will also allow Allen to work out of manageable down-and-distances, which will not allow Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo from getting into his exotic blitz packages that he gets into in obvious passing downs.