Word on the street is that it was good, my buddy Joey said it was very good, in fact he tells me that it was the greatest, the best of the best, the big fat perfect game of all time. The lay-abouts, you know them, they recite stats, dates, records, teams, talk about this quarter of that game, these are informed fans in possession of seismic sporting events and God only knows how but they can recall the whole mountain that is the Everest of sporting achievements, and it is this cohort of collective wisdom that claims yesterdays Bills-Chiefs playoff game was the Big Kahuna of sport thrills. Cecil B DeMille if he were still alive would order his studio to make the movie and release it as a spinetingling surprise ending epic faceoff between two quarterback titans of the sport.
Someone put a pin in a calendar, it was 1892 when the first professional football game was played in the United States. One hundred and thirty years later all we are talking about down at the corner of the bar where the well-oiled fans loiter is that there has never been a game like the one played late Sunday afternoon. “Not in my lifetime, yours or your mother’s, there ain’t ever been anything better.” Says this wise Joey, “Not ever. No way.” This was the one, the one and only.
Two preternaturally gifted quarterbacks played the greatest playoff game in the history of the sport, perhaps in the history of all sport. This was Frazier-Ali, this was Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth or Jack Johnson. Nobody is sure what the hell just happened, but whatever that was had to be as close to the best thrill in sport anyone has ever seen.
So, this is what we are talking about. In the last two minutes of the game between the Buffalo Bill’s and the Kansas City Chiefs with 1:54 on the clock the Bills take the lead 29-26. It takes 52 seconds for the Chiefs to answer with a touchdown. There is 1:02 left in the game and Chiefs go ahead 33-29. Forty-five seconds later the Bills roar back hitting Gabriel Davis for 19 yards in the end zone reclaiming the lead, it is now 36-33. There are 13 seconds on the clock, that is all the time the Chiefs would have to receive the kickoff then bring their offense back onto the field to try and score. That’s not nothing, but 13 seconds doesn’t leave much, in fact most figured there was no way any quarterback was going to pull this one off, it’s a damn pity someone has to lose after playing such a good game. With his lucky 13 seconds Mahomes passes left to Hill for 19 yards. The ball is placed on their 44-yard line. Each side uses a timeout. There are 8 seconds left on the clock. Mahomes takes the snap and throws to the middle of the field hitting his tight end Kelce for 31 yards. The ball is now on the 31-yard line within field goal range with 3 seconds on the clock. Kansas City Chief’s Harrison Butker kicks to tie the game 36-36 and sends the game into overtime.
Because of various rules to how the playing clock is started and stopped it took a little more than 6 minutes and 30 seconds to play the last 2 minutes. Buffalo’s quarterback Josh Allen tosses two touchdowns completing 5 of 7 while Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes also tosses two touchdowns hitting 8 passes out of 11. Together they combine for 246 yards and four touchdowns as time runs out and the game is tied.
Buffalo’s Josh Allen stands 6’5” and weighs 237 lbs., where Patrick Mahomes is 6’3” and weighs 230 lbs. Mahomes runs a 4.8 second 40-yard dash to Allen’s 4.6. On the ground in Sunday’s game Allen gained 68 yards in 11 attempts, Mahomes gained 69 yards in 7 runs. It’s one thing to be fast, but to be this big and this fast is rare, bigger men are usually a step slower, that much less agile, not this pair, these two are top notch. Both quarterbacks are big quick allusive players that are hard to tackle and will punish an opponent for trying.
One team had to win and as it turns out the winner in overtime was picked by a coin. Nobody can prove the first team to get the ball would score but that’s what happened, and I don’t think a soul in that stadium had a second of doubt. Josh Allen had called tails and the coin came up heads. Kansas City would receive the ball first. The rest is history, there were two short runs and six passes, the last to Kelce who catches a pass in the endzone and scores the game winning touchdown. This was a game between two of the best that have ever played the game and Sunday afternoon two teams gave football fans perhaps the biggest thrill the sport has ever known.
