Early deficit no problem for defending champion Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs spotted the Buffalo Bills nine points to start Sunday’s AFC championship game.

Then Patrick Mahomes started doing Patrick Mahomes things. Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill were unleashed, and the Chiefs defense buckled down on one of the highest-scoring offenses in the NFL.

Before the Bills knew it, the Chiefs were rolling to a 38-24 victory and their second straight trip to the Super Bowl.

Standing in way of a repeat championship is legendary quarterback Tom Brady, who is making his 10th appearance on football’s biggest stage. Only this time it’s with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers rather than the New England Patriots after Brady and the Bucs upended the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game.

With Mahomes, who was dealing with a turf toe injury and back on the field just seven days after suffering a concussion in win over the Cleveland Browns, Super Bowl LV sets up as a meeting between the greatest quarterback the current generation in Brady and the presumed heir apparent to that throne in Mahomes. The two have met once before in the AFC playoffs, with Brady leading New England to a 37-31 overtime win over the Chiefs in the AFC title game in January 2019.

“It seems like we’ve had a couple of those and every one of them is tremendous,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said of another Mahomes-Brady matchup. “I wouldn’t expect this to be any different.”

But first came beating the Bills.

Defensively, the 16-2 Chiefs continually turned way the 15-4 Bills in the red zone, forcing them to settle for field goals rather than touchdowns. They were able to disrupt the connection between Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs, his favorite wide receiver.

Diggs finished the regular season as the most productive wide receiver in the NFL in both receptions (127) and yards 1,535). But he was limited to just six catches for 77 yards and no touchdowns.

Meanwhile, the Bills scored just two touchdowns in five trips to the red zone — with the second coming late in the fourth quarter when the game was essentially out of hand. Among the red zone issues was the critical fourth-quarter interception Allen threw with the Bills lined up at the Chiefs’ 20-yard-line. Buffalo was driving and trying to cut into the Chiefs 31-15 lead, only to come away empty when Allen was intercepted by Rashad Fenton.

Mahomes was considerably better and made the Bills pay when they pressured him by buying time and finding open receivers. Kelce and Hill were frequent targets. Hill finished with nine catches for 172 yards and Kelce had 13 catches for 118 yards and two touchdowns.

“Those guys just know how to get open,” said Mahomes. “They’re obviously super talented, but they understand our offense to a crazy degree. They were able to get open in zone or man coverage and I just got them the ball.”

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on Twitter.