Should The Chiefs Be Worried About Buffalo’s Big Game Against New England?
20 repliesThe Bills are good, but are they THAT good?
The Bills had a good game against the Patriots on Saturday. A really good game. A really, REALLY good game. They had a total of 8 drives, the first 7 ended in a touchdown and the last one was three kneel downs by Mitchell Trubisky. While the Chiefs had a similar offensive output against the Steelers after a slow start (6 touchdown drives in a row), the Bills are obviously getting a lot of hype for arguably the best offensive performance ever.
So should the Chiefs be worried?
You’d think that having a good game in the Wildcard Round is a positive sign for how you’ll perform in the Divisional Round, but Soren Petro found a stat that showed that’s not necessarily the case.
Settle down Chiefs fans…
Since the NFL went to 12 playoff teams in 1990… teams that have scored 40+ in the Wild Card round (and won) are just 3-12 in the next round.
*The 2009 Packers lost 51-45 to the Cardinals and the 2013 Chiefs lost 45-44 to the Colts.
— Soren Petro (@SorenPetro) January 16, 2022
So is scoring a lot actually bad? Well no, because that’s right where Wildcard winners are in general in the next round (32-92), but it’s still interesting how scoring a lot doesn’t seem to correlate with success in the next game. Which begs the question, why?
My theory is that to play in the Wildcard Round means you aren’t all that great under the old format. Sure, you may be pretty good, but you’re not one of the top 2 teams in the conference, so you’re probably not elite. On the flip side, your opponent may actually not be very good at all and have snuck into the playoffs. So a blowout in the Wildcard Round is much more likely to indicate your opponent was bad than that you are good, and that shows up in the next round.
In short, don’t get too worked up about one game. Just like you shouldn’t point to them losing to the Jaguars as proof they suck. The Bills are a good team, just not quite as good as the Patriots made them look.
One problem with using that tweet to support your logic. We scored over 40 too so the Bills can say the exactly same thing.
I would be a little bit concerned about Buffalo beating the snot out of the Pats. Their a good team and that game gives them a ton of confidence on top of the fact they’ve already beat the Chiefs this year. The are fired up and ready to kick our ass again so yes we should be concerned about that.
Josh Allen is a good/exciting QB, but if the KC Defense is allowed to play, He’s the gunslinging type that will shoot himself in the foot too many times (ie Philip Rivers)… ala the “panic” throws.
and Patrick Mahomes is no Mac Jones.
I’ll be worried about Refs pushing our DBs back on their heels with one-sided ticky-tack to non-existent holding, illegal contact, pass-interference… that has happened in other key games (ex TB, Cinci, SD games)
Remember this?
Feliciano and Jones get at it last AFCCG. Can’t see from that angle but I’m pretty sure Feliciano gave Jones a shot first, and pretty sure the refs saw that first shot too so no flags thrown. There won’t be any love lost in the trenches.
Yeah he kidney shot Jones. There use to be a video with a better angle that clearly showed the punch, but it’s been taken down. You can still kind of see it in this one. if you look carefully you see a small flash of Feliciano’s hand near Jones’ kidney and then Jones bends slightly. It’s not a good enough angle to prove exactly what happened (sure wish I could find that video), but it’s pretty clear something did happen.
w00000000000000000000000000000000000000000t!
my evil plan is working … lost another 3 lbs in the last week (that’s some seriously good progress)
It doesn’t count if you hang onto the counter when you’re weighing yourself.
well dayum, now I gotta go back and re-weigh myself all over again
Attaboy.
Buffalo is a good team. Fortunately KC has the added edge of being at home coupled with the desire/ability to right a wrong from earlier in the season. I also tend to think Buffalo may have blown their proverbial wad against NE. Gonna be a good one, but I think Arrowhead itself helps put the good guys over the top.
Last I saw, the Chiefs were 2.5 point favorites which, as I understand it, if you factor in HFA it means the Bills are a half point favorite. The game is at Arrowhead so that is one advantage to the Chiefs. In my mind it is an even chance for either team and it should be one heckuva game.
this^^^ … in general, HFA is worth a FG … so yeah, all in all pretty even in terms of odds and who thinks which team will win
I agree with the comment, but I am not sure it is explained well enough for the logic. A team that scores a ton of points in the wild card games moves on. It now has to face a team that was (usually) higher ranked and has a better history of winning games during the regular season. The team that they beat in the wild card probably had some serious flaws either coming into the game or had bad misfortune during the game. Neither of those items help them as they move to the next game. The fact is, they will be moving on to face a bigger and better opponent. This is why the record is so poor for high scoring teams coming out of the wild card round – they now get to face tougher opponents and all the momentum and good fortune from the last game is gone and the skill of the new team has a better chance of overwhelming you. I understand that some like to think of momentum as being something that can pick you up and you can ride, but it truly only lasts for a short while. As Chiefs fans, we have seen too many times how we can get rolling, and then boom, holding penalty and that kills the drive and the momentum. Even as we scored crazy points at the end of the first half Sunday night, we go into half time and come back out – it is possible that the momentum has died down and we have to build it back up. We’ve all seen it, when teams run on it for a while and also when it crashes. Scoring a ton in the wild card games is great and can build you up with hope, but you move on to bigger and better teams a week later – and that big Mo may not be there. And, for what it’s worth, both the Chiefs and Bills scored over 40 points this past weekend and one of them is going to lose, so that stat will hold true… Read more »
I think our team has an advantage simply because we had a little adversity to their absolutely none. That and our guys lost last time they played each other. I still would rather have PM over Allen but if I didn’t have PM, Allen would be one of the other few I would consider as my QB. I think our D has a better chance of slowing them than does their D does at slowing us. Turnovers will determine the outcome as they usually do.
Josh Allen is indeed one hella good QB
nope!
however, they SHOULD be worried about the possibility of a big game from Buffalo THIS Sunday
last week is over and done … the lesson to be learned from the Pat-Bills game is that Buffalo has a prolific offense and can score 50 points AND they score quickly
one shouldn’t dismiss the Bills’ chances against KC, nor diminish KC’s chances against the Bills … it could go either way: a Bills blowout or the Chiefs blow out the Bills, or it could be a close game and go either way … you never know
that said, the Bills demolished a Hoodie Defense and that’s far easier said than done
also, that stat from Soren Petro is about the most meaningless thing in the world