Bills vs. Chiefs playoff history: Here's where series stands heading into Sunday showdown

There is a trend that bears watching in the next few weeks and it involves the postseason rivalry between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs.

Sunday night’s AFC divisional round playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium will be the fifth time the six-decade old rivals from back in the AFL days will have met in the postseason. And the winner of the first four games - each team won twice - has ended up playing in, and losing, the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs won the 1966 AFL Championship Game in Buffalo which enabled them to play in the very first Super Bowl where they lost to the dynastic Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi. And then last year, they won the AFC Championship Game which sent them to Super Bowl 55 where they lost to Tom Brady and Tampa Bay.

Buffalo won the middle two games in this playoff series, both during its run to a record four consecutive Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s, both played at Rich Stadium. 

They beat Kansas City in the 1991 divisional round on the way to lose Super Bowl 26 to Washington, and then ended the career of Joe Montana in the 1993 AFC Championship Game before losing Super Bowl 28 to Dallas.

For the Bills, even though they defeated the Chiefs 38-20 in Kansas City earlier this season, it almost seems like this playoff rematch had to happen.

“I had a feeling if we wanted to get to the Super Bowl we were going to have to beat them,” safety Jordan Poyer said of playing the Chiefs. “And you know, here we are … in that position for a great opportunity if we go play our best football.”

Here’s a look back at those four January games:

1966 AFL Championship: Chiefs 31, Bills 7

The stakes had never been higher in what was then the seven-year history of the AFL as they were in this game.

Earlier in 1966, leaders of the AFL and NFL came to an agreement to merge the two leagues in time for the 1970 season and play under the banner of the NFL, with the league split into the National and American conferences.

As part of the agreement, the sides decided to have a common draft starting in 1967, and before that, starting in January 1967, the winners of the AFL and NFL would meet in a world championship game which would later be referred to as the Super Bowl.

Lombardi’s Packers won the NFL title by defeating the Cowboys in Dallas, and the Bills and Chiefs met at Buffalo’s War Memorial Stadium on New Years’ Day 1967 to determine Green Bay’s opponent.

The Bills had won the previous two AFL championships, defeating San Diego in both games, and they were the slight favorite against the Chiefs who had won the 1962 AFL crown in their final season playing in Dallas. But it was a disastrous day for the Bills.

Buffalo’s Dudley Meredith fumbled the opening kickoff, Jerrol Wilson recovered for Kansas City at the Bills 31, and three plays later Len Dawson faked a draw play and hit wide-open Fred Arbanas with a 29-yard TD pass just 1:43 into the game.

The Bills tied it five plays later when Jack Kemp hit Elbert Dubenion with a 69-yard TD pass and the shivering crowd of 42,080 sensed a back and forth shootout was about to unfold. Instead, those were the only points the Bills would score.

Right before halftime the game turned for good in Kansas City’s favor. Down 14-7, the Bills were threatening late in the half as they drove to the Chiefs 11. However, Kemp tried to hit Bobby Crockett at the goal line, but safety Johnny Robinson cut in front and intercepted the pass and returned it 72 yards. Mike Mercer then kicked a 32-yard field goal with three seconds left in the half and the Bills never recovered from that 10-point swing.

When he met Chiefs coach Hank Stram for the post-game handshake, Bills coach Joe Collier told him, “If you play in the Super Bowl the way you played today, you’ll give them all they can handle. Your execution was nearly perfect.”

That did not happen as the Packers blew out the Chiefs 35-10.

1991 AFC Divisional: Bills 37, Chiefs 14

This was never a contest. The Bills finished 13-3 and won their fourth straight AFC East division title while the Chiefs were a 10-6 wild card, but way back in Week 6, the Bills were 5-0 when they went into Arrowhead Stadium for a Monday night game and got destroyed.

Kansas City won 33-6 as its defense forced five fumbles, sacked Jim Kelly six times including four by Derrick Thomas, and the Bills offense – which would set franchise records for points and yards by season’s end – was held to two Scott Norwood field goals and 211 yards.

So when the Chiefs arrived at Rich Stadium, the Bills were fully alert and ready to make amends for that horrifying performance and the result was an equally impressive blowout.

Kelly threw 25- and 53-yard TD passes to Andre Reed in the first half and a 10-yarder to James Lofton in the third quarter for a 24-0 lead. At one point it was 37-7. The Bills finished with 29 first downs and 448 yards with Kelly throwing for 273 yards and Thurman Thomas rushing for 100.

On defense, the Bills knocked KC’s starting QB, Steve DeBerg, out of the game in the second quarter and proceeded to intercept backup QB Mark Vlasic four times as the Chiefs managed only 213 yards.

“The key was what happened on Monday night,” safety Leonard Smith said. “They dominated that game and we didn’t want that to happen again. I don’t think it was so much revenge, it was just going out and getting respect. We left there with no respect.”

The Bills would go on to beat Denver in the AFC Championship Game but lose 37-24 to the Redskins in Super Bowl 26.

1993 AFC Championship: Bills 30, Chiefs 13

Similarly to what happened in 1991, in 1993 the Bills traveled to Kansas City in the regular season, this time for a Week 13 game, and got smoked 23-7 as Joe Montana returned after missing three games with an injury and threw for 208 yards and two touchdowns.

The 8-3 Bills fell a game behind Miami in the AFC East and afterward, center Kent Hull said, “I would say we’re concerned; I wouldn’t say we’re panicking by any means.” 

He then made a typically prescient comment when he said, “Who does Kansas City play next week? I don’t even know, but they’ll probably get beat. They’re mentally dead right now. Every time we play somebody, I see it, the fire in their eyes. I think people play us differently than they play anybody else.”

That’s what it was like for the Bills during their four-year domination of the AFC; they got everybody’s best game. And what made those teams so great was that when they faced the Chiefs in the postseason rematch, again in Buffalo, they made their adjustments and blew them away.

Thomas erupted for a Bills’ playoff record 186 yards and scored three touchdowns, and the Buffalo defense knocked Montana out of the game early in the third quarter with a concussion when Bruce Smith and Jeff Wright crushed him. It turned out to be Montana’s final NFL game.

Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer, who was a backup Bills linebacker when the Bills lost that 1966 title game to Kansas City, said, “What you do is take your hat off to the Buffalo Bills. They were the much better team today.”

And then, just like Joe Collier had told Hank Stram in 1966 about the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl against the Packers, Schottenheimer said, “Let me tell you something, if that football team goes to play the way they did today, all those ‘doomsday’ people can pack it away because this is a hell of a team.”

Well, Collier missed his mark and so did Schottenheimer because the Bills lost their fourth straight Super Bowl, 30-13 to the Cowboys.

2020 AFC Championship Game: Chiefs 38, Bills 24

The Bills captured their first AFC East title since 1995 by winning 13 of 16 regular-season games thanks mainly to an explosive offense that shattered several franchise records including most points scored with 501.

Josh Allen, in his third season with the team, experienced a breakthrough that set the NFL on fire and he finished runner-up to Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers in the MVP balloting. Allen put together a remarkable season in which he threw for 4,544 yards and produced a total of 46 touchdowns (37 passing), all of which were team individual records.

He then directed two home playoff victories over the Colts and Ravens to set up a showdown with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs at Arrowhead. It was there that the Bills’ dream season crashed to an end as Mahomes passed for 325 yards and three TDs and Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill combined for 22 catches for 290 yards and two TDs, both by Kelce.

“We fell short tonight,” said Jerry Hughes, the longest-tenured Bill. “The Chiefs played tremendous ball. We didn’t bring our ‘A’ game and so the result stands as they were. But this feeling, we’re going to remember this feeling in the offseason. This is something that will carry us through.”

The Bills actually jumped to a 9-0 first-quarter lead, but the Chiefs responded with a 38-6 run to open a 38-15 lead before Buffalo tacked on some garbage time points at the end.

“They were just the better football team than us today and that’s unfortunate,” said center Mitch Morse, whose return to KC where he played his first four NFL seasons was obviously unfulfilling. “It’s definitely a different feeling in that locker room, but what can you do except move forward? There’s a lot of learning from this and we’ll move on from here.”

Perhaps we’ll see how much the Bills learned come Sunday night.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.