My keys to the game:

Sense of urgency on offense. It’s incredible how efficient this offense can look when it truly needs to be. Too many times does this offense stagnate and stall while it seems we’re comfortable doing just enough to keep pace with our opponent to pull out some ****ery in the 4th quarter for the win.

I’d like to see us come out with a real sense of urgency from start to finish. Act as if every down, every drive is important.

Apply pressure on Josh Allen. This is pretty broad, but he is their best player and the lifeblood of their offense. We can apply pressure by 1) harassing him in the pocket 2) winning on early downs to keep them out of 3rd and 4th and short 3) playing tight coverage with different, exotic looks.

I mentioned elsewhere that having lost to us so many times has changed their team. I think we’re going to get a version of them that goes for it on every 4th and short beyond midfield. To prevent that, we need to win on the early downs by stopping the run. Keep them in 3rd and long as often as possible then get off the field when you do.

They’ve adopted the tush push and they’re very good at it. 3rd and 2 or less will basically turn into an automatic 1st down if we’re not careful.

Win or tie the turnover battle. It’s been mentioned quite a bit but this Bills team feeds on winning the turnover battle.

During their game against the Ravens, at one point Allen got stood up on a QB sneak and looked like he was going to pitch the ball to a back behind him. He’s generally been much safer with the ball this year but he’s itching to give it up.

And obviously we don’t need any of our guys giving them the ball.

Bills stopping Barkley, I question

Well they beat Baltimore so Buffalo must be the greatest team of all time.

I don't know why anyone listens to Chadiha. 810 has him on for pure rage bait.

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990 View Post

If the Chiefs don’t get it done, will you be happy for and root for Josh Allen?

THIS! Are you insane, Deberg?

The Chiefs OL has to show up and play well. If Mahomes is under duress all day we're gonna be in trouble.

Yep, we also need good Pat to show up. If he’s shaky, it just makes things so much harder.

In his defense, he has played really well against the Bills in the postseason. Hopefully he keeps that trend going this weekend.

Agreed.

We seemingly flipped the switch against the Texans and Steelers in the regular season, then suddenly turned it off against the Texans in the playoffs? It needs to be flipped, we need to be locked in and have that sense of urgency to get through this game.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Texans are the first team in NFL postseason history to outgain their opponent by 100 yards, have 0 turnovers, and lose. <br><br>Prior to the Texans, teams were 49-0 in such games. Unreal. �� <a href="https://t.co/NUI6eSEb7g">pic.twitter.com/NUI6eSEb7g</a></p>&mdash; NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNNFL/status/1880780504473190868?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

These are it right here

I think of NFL games as three stages.

1 - Preseason games. Most teams don't care at all and are not trying to win these games. Some teams that have been bad or have a really young roster might try to win, but for the most part, nobody cares and the only people really trying hard are the players trying to make a roster.

2 - Regular season games. Everyone is trying to win these games, but almost nobody will risk the future for the sake of a single regular season game. Things change when you get near the end of the season and some games essentially become playoffs, but you don't want to lose the war because you fought a battle for a Pyrrhic victory.

3 - Playoff games. Everyone tries to win these games. You don't sacrifice a player's health, but OTOH, everyone plays with pain in the playoffs. There is no tomorrow if you lose, so you don't hold anything back. Win this game and then deal with the results as you get ready for the next one.

Given all that I ask, just how much was Andy trying to win that game against Buffalo? We had a perfect record at the time, but does anyone really think Andy would concern himself with chasing a perfect season? There were playoff seeding concerns at the time, but I don't think Andy was much worried about that. I am not saying that Andy played to lose that game, but I am saying that I don't think Andy was willing to show his entire hand to win it.

Like it's been said, we really need to win 1st and 2nd down on defense. 3rd and short against this team is such a mountainous task. They'll go for it probably 4-5 times on 4th down against us if it's within 2 yards, and with Cook and Allen, they're incredibly efficient at converting.

Yeah, they can absolutely still turn it on when needed, despite the lack of good execution overall this season.. I thought the Texans game would be similar to the Ravens AFCCG and they'd look surgical out of the gate, but still have confidence it'll happen this weekend... and of course will need to be for 60 minutes as they won't be able to just shut it down at halftime because Playoff Lamar is on the opposite sideline (darn).

It's always an interesting and usually frustrating chess match of containing him... not over-pursuing, keeping lanes, etc.

The Chiefs punted once and had 0 turnovers, my dude.

They didn't score as many TDs, but for what this game was, the offense was fine.

It could not possibly be more dissimilar.

Beating the Bengals was slaying a dragon. Super high emotional leverage game that would've meaningfully demoralized the fanbase had we lost. Right now we're coming off 2 consecutive SB wins and playing a team that we've beaten 3 times in the playoffs previously. This is just the icing on top of a great run.

How dare you compare it to that game against the Bengals? Are you even a real Chiefs fan?!

This has been posted many times. Knock it off. Nobody cares about this useless stat.