What the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts rivalry once was is what the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills rivalry has officially become. Two of the best teams in the NFL year after year, led by arguably the two best quarterbacks alive, playing in high-stakes games — even their regular season meetings now carry extra weight — that seemingly always come down to the wire. Their Divisional Round matchup last Sunday was no different.

As has been the case now in four of the seven meetings between Kansas City and Buffalo since Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen took over as starting quarterbacks of these two teams, the Chiefs came out on top on Sunday, narrowly escaping Orchard Park, New York with a 27-24 win. The win was thanks in large part to a missed 44-yard field goal that surely gave Bills fans PTSD flashbacks of Scott Norwood's wide right miss in Super Bowl XXV. After the game, with emotions surely running high on both sides, Kansas City Chiefs All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce found his way to Allen, to give some love to his brother on the other side of the battlefield.

 

Bills kicker Tyler Bass will unfortunately forever be remembered for his miss, and Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott will take some of the blame as well, but there will also likely be a vocal minority of fans who pin the loss on Josh Allen, and I'll just be blunt for a second, I'm not gonna have any of that.

On Sunday, Allen completed 26 of 39 passes for 186 yards and a touchdown, in addition to 72 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground. In three postseason losses to the Chiefs, Allen has completed 81 of 124 pass attempts for 802 yards, added 228 rushing yards, and contributed nine touchdowns to just one interception. For my money, Josh Allen is the second-best quarterback alive. The problem is he keeps running into the one guy better than him.

And then there's Travis Kelce, who recognized the greatness in Josh Allen in part because he too is an all-time great in his own right. In the win over Buffalo, Kelce finished with five receptions for 72 yards and two touchdowns. It was Kelce's 4th career postseason game with at least 2 receiving touchdowns and at least 50 yards receiving, putting him into a second place tie behind Jerry Rice (5) with former Patriots and Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski, according to StatMuse.

With the win, the Chiefs advanced to their sixth consecutive AFC Championship Game appearance, where they'll face the favored Ravens in Baltimore. If Mahomes, Kelce and the Chiefs can pull off another road upset, it'll mark their fourth Super Bowl appearance in the last six years.