A three-peat in the AFC Conference Championship? Crossed off. A three-peat in the Super Bowl? Umm… still on the table. The Chiefs? They don’t just win; they make it look inevitable. That ‘never bet against Mahomes‘ line? It’s not just fan talk, it’s the cold, hard truth. Another year, another setback for Josh Allen. His championship dreams crumbled under the bright lights of Kansas City. You could almost see the weight Allen carried as yet another shot at glory slipped away. While the QB struggled to find the right words after the loss, Coach Sean McDermott didn’t hesitate to point out where the Bills fell short.

“Not the result we’re looking for. So proud of the guys, though. They battled, they gave it everything they had. Just came up a little short tonight against a really good football team,” said Coach McDermott. Honestly, the Bills were looking wobbly right from the first quarter, especially after CB Christian Benford went down with an injury. “You know, losing CB hurt us early. Overall, the guys battled and just came up a little bit short tonight. It looked like it could have gone either way,” added the Bills HC. 

This conference championship game was everything you could ask for. The Bills’ confidence might’ve shaken a bit after Benford’s injury, but they kept pushing. For the unversed: The cornerback suffered a concussion in the first quarter and had to be carted off the field, after he injured himself while tackling Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy. Benford’s teammate and the team’s safety Damar Hamlin (who was also on his way to make the tackle) made contact with the CB’s helmet. Notably, despite the hit, Benford still tried to return to the game, but was stopped by his team, including his close friend Rasul Douglas. 

Having said that, when the third quarter came around, you could feel it was going to be a real grind. As a disappointed Sean McDermott, put it ” We had some plays, I thought—there was a chance to convert a fourth down, a fourth and short, and then another fourth down late in the game. It looked like we had a chance to catch it, but it didn’t work out that way.” Ouch! Did he just blame Dalton Kincaid?

The unfortunate incident the coach is talking about unfolded with two minutes left in the fourth quarter when the Bills were facing fourth-and-5 at their own 47-yard line. As the Chiefs’ pass rush closed in, Allen found an opening and made a spectacular throw to Kincaid. The result? A devastating drop, that moved the Buffalo Bills farther away from attempting a long game-tying field goal, and a potential touchdown.

Reacting to the drop, Kincaid later told Syracuse.com, “Josh got the ball off. He was pressured, and it was hanging up there and I just wasn’t able to catch it. Right now, it obviously hurts a lot, and it’s going to linger for a while, but eventually you’ve got to move on. And hopefully you grow from this, and I believe that will be the case, but for the time being, it’s going to hurt a lot.”

Even though McDermott seemed particularly sad about that missed catch, he also made some compelling statements in favor of Kincaid. “You mentioned the catch on fourth down. What do you say to a young player like Dalton, who doesn’t come up with a play in that spot in the big moment?” a reporter asked to which McDermott responded proudly, “I love Dalton Kincaid and sometimes those just don’t work out. He makes more of those than he misses and he’ll make the next one.”

And when a media personnel asked McDermott, “Did you feel like, defensively, you just couldn’t get off the field when you needed to?”, the coach answered, “Yeah. In particular, in the first half, and then one or two drives in the second half. There just…didn’t do a good enough job getting pressure on Mahomes and looked like they were spitting the ball out at times on the perimeter as well. So that combination was hurting us more than anything.”

One cannot deny that things got pretty intense in the last quarter. Curtis Samuel grabbed a 4-yard TD pass from Josh Allen, tying it up at 29-29. The Bills Mafia were hoping for a tie if not a straight win. Then came time for Harrison Butker’s magic -field goal: Three points. The deal’s done.

Well, there goes that dream! 

A shattered Josh Allen couldn’t hide the heartbreak

Josh Allen couldn’t save his team. This year’s top MVP contender gave it his all, but even then he couldn’t fight off the Chiefs’ Kingdom. Even if you’re not a Buffalo fan, it’s hard not to feel for Josh Allen. Standing in front of the media after the loss, his face said it all. You could almost hear him screaming inside. “All right, guys, showing up each and every day, working as hard as they can,” said the Bills’ QB as he stood at the podium. “You guys truly adopted what we talked about this year going into it.“

Josh knew it was over the moment Mahomes connected with RB Semaje Perine for that game-clinching first down. With the clock winding down, every shred of hope faded away. As the camera focused on Allen during those final minutes, you could see the weight of the entire Bills fanbase on his shoulders. The QB looked like he was carrying the pain of a whole city.

In the end, the Chiefs got their revenge for that early-season loss. Patrick Mahomes and his crew are now one step closer to another Super Bowl win. And once again, it is Chiefs vs Eagles. But this time, Travis Kelce won’t be facing off against his brother.

We’ve got a two-week break until the big finale, so why not take some time to memorize a few of K Dot’s songs?