More like Buffalo Chills amirite
Jan. 22nd, 2024 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayhapPatrick Mahomes has still never not made it to the AFC Championship game as a starter, even though his five-year streak of hosting it has been snapped. His floor is an AFC Championship loss, and so far that has happened as many times has he has been named Super Bowl MVP (twice). It's really quite astonishing and ought to be properly appreciated, no matter what else happens this postseason.
In the afternoon game, two castoff number one overall draft picks faced off against each other with their new teams and Jared Goff and the Lions duly defeated Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers 31-23, although it was close right up until the end and managed to adequately distract me while I was waiting for my game to start. With the 49ers looking a bit mortal in their last game, it's not at all out of the question that the Lions could make it to the Super Bowl, strange as that is to say.
At last, it was time for the feature presentation. There exists a rivalry between the Chiefs and the Bills, although it's arguably just a subset of the rivalry between the Bills and postseason success. The Chiefs crushed the Bills in the 2021 AFC Championship. Then the Bills won the regular season matchup in 2022 and their fans seemed to feel like their team had really accomplished something for some reason, only to find themselves playing the Chiefs again in the divisional round. A truly epic game ensued, with 25 points scored and four lead changes after the two-minute warning alone. When Josh Allen threw a touchdown with thirteen seconds left on the clock, people joked that he'd left Patrick Mahomes too much time to score…and they were correct. Thanks in no small part to Mahomes audibling to a play that Kelce suggested, the Chiefs kicked a game-tying field goal in those unlucky thirteen seconds and won in overtime.
But this time it was definitely supposed to be different. After all, the Bills had home field advantage. Their fans were burning Taylor Swift in effigy in the parking lot and throwing snowballs at players on the field with impunity. Surely the third time would be the charm.
The game reminded me of the thirteen seconds game, and not just because Tony Romo and Jim Nantz were bringing it up constantly. Tony Romo, in particular, is really starting to get on my nerves when he calls Chiefs-Bills games, because he's been hyping up Josh Allen for years now and he really wants his guy to finally live up to his hype and it's increasingly irritating when his commentary starts to feel slanted towards the outcome that he so clearly desires (and it's for my team to lose). I believe at one point during this game he said that “they” call Josh “the Alien” and “Mr. January,” when in fact those are both nicknames that he made up and that nobody else uses. “Mr. January,“ in particular, attracted a lot of scorn, since the Super Bowl is now played in February and he was basically saying that his guy can get to the playoffs but never play in the big game. Which, I mean, thus far that's been true, but it doesn't seem to have been what he meant. At any rate, this game was a real back-and-forth nail biter with lead changes galore, so it did indeed hearken back to the thirteen seconds game.
Fortunately to alleviate some of the tension we got periodic peeks at Jason Kelce living it up in the box with the rest of Travis's posse. Whether this is retirement or just the offseason for him, he is definitely living his best, most shirtless life. He even broke containment to hoist up a little girl with an “I ❤️ Taylor Swift” sign so she could say hi. [EDIT: That little girl shared her story, awwwww!] Travis accounted for two of the touchdowns in the game, so his friends and family had plenty to cheer for up there. I'm glad we've been able to show Taylor a good time with postseason football so far; it would be sad if we could only offer her a loss in the divisional round.
The last two minutes of this game were relatively dramatic, although nowhere near as action-packed as the thirteen seconds game, which is an outlier and should not have been counted. This time the Bills were the ones who needed a field goal to tie the game, and they missed it—wide right, naturally. Then the Chiefs just needed to pick up a single first down to be able to kneel it out, which they did, and that was the game.
It's extremely fun to watch your team just repeatedly rip another team's soul out like that. Mahomes says that he likes to be the villain in away games, and his teammates all confirmed that he was excited for it. Just look at this adorable little villain! We're only three and a half point underdogs against the Ravens next week, so who knows, maybe we'll fuck around and win another away playoff game and go to another Super Bowl in a ‘down year.’
In the afternoon game, two castoff number one overall draft picks faced off against each other with their new teams and Jared Goff and the Lions duly defeated Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers 31-23, although it was close right up until the end and managed to adequately distract me while I was waiting for my game to start. With the 49ers looking a bit mortal in their last game, it's not at all out of the question that the Lions could make it to the Super Bowl, strange as that is to say.
At last, it was time for the feature presentation. There exists a rivalry between the Chiefs and the Bills, although it's arguably just a subset of the rivalry between the Bills and postseason success. The Chiefs crushed the Bills in the 2021 AFC Championship. Then the Bills won the regular season matchup in 2022 and their fans seemed to feel like their team had really accomplished something for some reason, only to find themselves playing the Chiefs again in the divisional round. A truly epic game ensued, with 25 points scored and four lead changes after the two-minute warning alone. When Josh Allen threw a touchdown with thirteen seconds left on the clock, people joked that he'd left Patrick Mahomes too much time to score…and they were correct. Thanks in no small part to Mahomes audibling to a play that Kelce suggested, the Chiefs kicked a game-tying field goal in those unlucky thirteen seconds and won in overtime.
But this time it was definitely supposed to be different. After all, the Bills had home field advantage. Their fans were burning Taylor Swift in effigy in the parking lot and throwing snowballs at players on the field with impunity. Surely the third time would be the charm.
The game reminded me of the thirteen seconds game, and not just because Tony Romo and Jim Nantz were bringing it up constantly. Tony Romo, in particular, is really starting to get on my nerves when he calls Chiefs-Bills games, because he's been hyping up Josh Allen for years now and he really wants his guy to finally live up to his hype and it's increasingly irritating when his commentary starts to feel slanted towards the outcome that he so clearly desires (and it's for my team to lose). I believe at one point during this game he said that “they” call Josh “the Alien” and “Mr. January,” when in fact those are both nicknames that he made up and that nobody else uses. “Mr. January,“ in particular, attracted a lot of scorn, since the Super Bowl is now played in February and he was basically saying that his guy can get to the playoffs but never play in the big game. Which, I mean, thus far that's been true, but it doesn't seem to have been what he meant. At any rate, this game was a real back-and-forth nail biter with lead changes galore, so it did indeed hearken back to the thirteen seconds game.
Fortunately to alleviate some of the tension we got periodic peeks at Jason Kelce living it up in the box with the rest of Travis's posse. Whether this is retirement or just the offseason for him, he is definitely living his best, most shirtless life. He even broke containment to hoist up a little girl with an “I ❤️ Taylor Swift” sign so she could say hi. [EDIT: That little girl shared her story, awwwww!] Travis accounted for two of the touchdowns in the game, so his friends and family had plenty to cheer for up there. I'm glad we've been able to show Taylor a good time with postseason football so far; it would be sad if we could only offer her a loss in the divisional round.
The last two minutes of this game were relatively dramatic, although nowhere near as action-packed as the thirteen seconds game, which is an outlier and should not have been counted. This time the Bills were the ones who needed a field goal to tie the game, and they missed it—wide right, naturally. Then the Chiefs just needed to pick up a single first down to be able to kneel it out, which they did, and that was the game.
It's extremely fun to watch your team just repeatedly rip another team's soul out like that. Mahomes says that he likes to be the villain in away games, and his teammates all confirmed that he was excited for it. Just look at this adorable little villain! We're only three and a half point underdogs against the Ravens next week, so who knows, maybe we'll fuck around and win another away playoff game and go to another Super Bowl in a ‘down year.’
