Travis Kelce caught two touchdown passes from Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City advanced to their sixth straight AFC championship game with a 27-24 win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night.
Isiah Pacheco scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 4-yard run 40 seconds into the fourth quarter in a game where the teams traded leads five times. Kansas City then clinched the win by running out the clock after Buffalo’s Tyler Bass was wide right on a 44-yard field goal attempt with 1:43 remaining. The defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City (13-6) moves on to face the conference’s top-seeded Baltimore Ravens, who beat Houston 34-10 on Saturday.
Kansas City is 0-1 in the playoffs against the Ravens, following a 30-7 loss in the 2010 wild-card round. Baltimore defeated Kansas City 36-35 in their most recent regular-season matchup in Week 2 of the 2021 season. Kansas City has never lost in the divisional round since Mahomes took over as starter in 2018, and Kansas City has now won five consecutive playoff games since a 27-24 overtime loss to Cincinnati in the AFC championship game during the 2021 season.
Mahomes, a two-time NFL MVP, can also check off another first on his record by winning his first road start in the playoffs — not counting Super Bowls — and improving his postseason mark to 13-3. The Bills (12-7) had their third consecutive postseason end in the divisional round, following losses to Cincinnati last year and Kansas City in 2021. And Kansas City ended Buffalo’s season for the third time in four years, including a 38-24 decision at Kansas City in the 2020 season AFC championship game.
It was another disappointing finish for a Bills team that won its fourth consecutive AFC East title, and was on a six-game roll since a 20-17 win at Kansas City on Dec. 10.
