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Dan Graziano, senior NFL national reporter
The Eagles-Cowboys prime time game may have been Sunday’s main course, but the appetizer was a pretty intense late afternoon game in Kansas City. The Bills hung on to beat the Chiefs 20-17 when receiver Kadarius Toney’s clear and egregious offsides penalty nullified the go-ahead touchdown in the final two minutes.
For the Chiefs, it was the latest chapter in a frustrating season in which their wide receivers can’t stop making mistakes and they have not been able to get their once-vaunted offense going. They’ve now lost four of their past six and are amazingly only one game ahead of the Broncos in the AFC West. Their remaining schedule features the Patriots, Raiders, Bengals and Chargers, so they should be able to hold off Denver and win their eighth straight division title. But their chances of getting the top seed in the AFC playoff field are down to 9.9%, and the likelihood of Patrick Mahomes having to play a road playoff game for the first time in his career is increasing by the week.
Meanwhile, it was absolutely a must-win game for the Bills, who improved to 7-6 for the season and saw their chances of reaching the playoffs climb to 37.5%. It has felt all season that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for Buffalo. Devastating injuries to key defensive players. Handing the Broncos a second chance at a winning field goal by having too many men on the field. The scapegoat firing of offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey after that game. The embarrassing revelation this past week of coach Sean McDermott’s citation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a speech to the team four years ago. But in spite of everything, the Bills aren’t cooked just yet.
Sunday’s win kept the Bills in contention, and they’ve shown enough over the last half-decade to prove that we shouldn’t count them out. So we’ll start the Week 14 overreactions column — in which we judge some of the biggest potential takeaways off the slate of games — with them.
Jump to:
Bills among AFC’s most dangerous teams?
NFC playoff teams with losing records?
Will Fields start somewhere in 2024?
Will Tomlin have a losing season?
Eagles not a Super Bowl-caliber team?
