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00:00It is in Western New York on Sunday afternoon, not Sunday Night Football, but in that 4.25pm
00:06Eastern window of those marquee games. The Buffalo Bills host the Kansas City Chiefs.
00:12The Bills a slight one and a half point home favorite. Total stands at 45 and a hook. Of
00:17course, Kansas City, the lone remaining undefeated team in the NFL, a perfect 9-0,
00:23but just 5-4 ATS. Buffalo has won five straight. They are now 8-2. They have covered in four of
00:31these previous five consecutive wins. Joe, just saw this stat earlier from ESPN's Field Yates.
00:38Since the merger in the National Football League in 1970, here's a really quirky fact. This is just
00:43the fifth game between two teams with at least eight wins, week 11 or later in an NFL season.
00:51You would think there probably was a couple more times that we had some good football teams
00:54squaring off. No, this is just the fifth time since 1970 that in week 11 or later in an NFL calendar,
01:02two teams with at least eight wins face off against another. The previous two, the Chiefs
01:08played in the game, and in the previous two, the Chiefs did fall. Here is Kansas City as an
01:14underdog for the second time this year. They won outright by double digits in San Francisco
01:21in the Super Bowl 58 rematch. What will we see here in the AFC Divisional Round rematch from
01:27a season ago, now in the regular season? Yeah, the thing that scares me here, Ben, is that the
01:34entire world is running to bet Buffalo in this game here, and they're getting a lot of love
01:43thinking that at some point, the luck has got to run out for Kansas City, right? And I'd rather
01:49be lucky than good. Am I right, Ben, in spots here? I mean, Kansas City, as fortunate as they
01:55have been in some games, they are winning one-score games because they put themselves in a position to
02:01win one-score games at the end of it, right? A blocked field goal, they had almost blocked
02:07one. It wasn't an anomaly. They had almost blocked one earlier in the game as well. So,
02:13they make things happen. That's what championship teams do. And listen, we all know Buffalo beats
02:19Kansas City during the regular season. They don't beat them in the playoffs, and that's the whole
02:25key here. So, I don't think this ever gets to three, by the way. I think it's going to be one
02:30and a half, two and a half, somewhere in that ballpark there. It's never going to get to a
02:35field goal. The books are going to keep it under. To me, if you really like Kansas City,
02:41use Kansas City in a teaser spot in a bunch of different other games, which will work.
02:47Get them up over a touchdown. I still think it's a one-score game, Ben, one way or the other with
02:52these two teams, but I would not be running and backing a side here. I'd much more look at the
02:59teaser opportunities between these two teams. So, since the start of the 2021 season, these two
03:07teams have met six times. Three in the regular season, three in the postseason. To Joe's point,
03:13Buffalo has won all three in the regular season. In fact, all three in the regular season in
03:20Arrowhead with the Bills winning outright. But what matters most, that playoff stage.
03:26It is the most significant, and that is where KC performs. They have bounced the Buffalo Bills
03:32from playoff contention three of the last four years. AFC championship game in 2020 season,
03:39but of course played in January 2021. And then in the division around two of the last three years.
03:48That is where Kansas City has always held the upper hand over Buffalo. So, even if the Bills
03:53win at home as a very slight favorite, we'll do the same thing. Does Buffalo have KC's number?
04:00No, just know the playoffs is much, much more important than what we are seeing here. But again,
04:07Joe, maybe it's not just who wins this game and who would have the advantage in a presumptive
04:12rematch at some point in the postseason. It's the outlook for both. Kansas City is a minus 400
04:19favorite, now minus 390, but basically $4 odds on favorite to be the number one overall seed in the
04:26AFC. We can question just how dominant nor impressive they have been in this perfect 9-0
04:32start. One thing you cannot question, where it puts them in pole position to be that top team in
04:38the AFC, to not have to do what they did last year for the first time in any of their six appearances
04:43in the AFC championship game with Patrick Mahomes, win one on the road, and host all of the AFC
04:51postseason in Arrowhead. That's why this game would be huge for Buffalo, because here's where
04:58things work right now. Let's say the Bills win, right, as they are slightly favored to do. Kansas
05:02City's first loss, the Chiefs are 9-1. Buffalo is 1-6 straight. They are 9-2. KC, though, still
05:09has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Baltimore Ravens, who have the second best price to win the
05:13AFC crown. The Ravens still have the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Buffalo Bills, so KC still
05:20in that pole position to be the number one seed in the AFC, and that's important to put in the
05:26context of this game on Sunday as well. Yeah, and listen, there is ramifications to this game here.
05:35The Chiefs have done exactly what they've needed to do to this point. It hasn't been pretty.
05:40They're not steamrolling teams, but you know what they're doing? They're racking up the Ws. At the
05:45end of the day, that is all that matters, and Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid know that. We also
05:50know that Patrick Mahomes and his record as an underdog, Ben, 11-3 straight up, 12-1 against
05:57the number. It is pretty darn impressive here. Will the game mean more to Buffalo? I can make
06:04the argument that Buffalo doesn't care, because Buffalo knows they've got to face them again
06:10in January, and that's the only game that's going to matter, so it'd be great to beat them here,
06:16but I do think it's not the end. This isn't the Super Bowl for Buffalo. Buffalo knows this means
06:22nothing. They've beaten them before in the regular season. It's the game in January that
06:27is going to be for all the marbles, so I think either Buffalo wins this by a million points,
06:34or Kansas City does what they've been doing all year long, takes the last second field goal to win it.