Josh Alper ,
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The Bills pulled off a furious comeback in the fourth quarter to beat the Ravens in Week 1 and the Chiefs found themselves needing to do the same thing at Highmark Stadium on Sunday.
Josh Allen’s second rushing touchdown of the day put the Bills up 28-13 late in the third quarter, but the Chiefs drove for a Kareem Hunt touchdown run that cut the Buffalo lead to eight points. A two-point conversion pass by Patrick Mahomes to tight end Travis Kelce cut the deficit to 7 and a pair of sacks forced the Bills to punt on their next drive. The Chiefs picked up one first down, but Joey Bosa pressured Mahomes into a inaccurate deep ball that Bills cornerback Maxwell Hairston picked off.
The Bills ran nearly four minutes off the clock before calling on Matt Prater to try a 52-yard field goal. Prater has made the most field goals of at least 50 yards in NFL history, but he put this one off the upright and the Chiefs had one more chance. A pass to Xavier Worthy moved the ball to the Bills’ 40-yard line, but a pair of Hail Marys fell incomplete to seal the 28-21 Bills win.
It’s the fifth-straight time that the Bills have beaten the Chiefs during the regular season. They’ll be in Miami to face the Dolphins next week.
The win is a significant one for the Bills’ hopes of leapfrogging the Patriots in the AFC East and landing home field advantage in the postseason, but they’ve proven they can beat the Chiefs before January in the past. Until they do that or otherwise advance to a Super Bowl, there will still be a big step left for them to take.
If Allen and running back James Cook keep playing at this level, that step will be a reasonable one. He was 23-of-26 for 273 yards to go with his two touchdowns on the ground and Cook followed up a big Week 8 by running 27 times for 114 yards. That helped the Bills possess the ball for nearly 10 minutes more than the Chiefs and that loomed large in the final score.
Getting the kind of pass rush that Bosa and company provided on Sunday would help as well. The Bills had three sacks and they hit Mahomes 15 times over the course of the night. One negative was the loss of defensive lineman Michael Hoecht to an Achilles injury and the Bills can’t afford too many more hits to a line that’s already missing Ed Oliver for the indefinite future.
The Chiefs lost right tackle Jawaan Taylor and left guard Kingsley Suamataia to injuries during the game. They’ll hope that everyone heals up over their bye week because they need to rip off a few more wins to try to keep pace with the Broncos in the AFC West.
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