These Bills were different, but the outcome — a stinging playoff loss to the Chiefs — was the same

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Josh Allen exited the visiting team’s media room at Arrowhead Stadium following his obligatory post-game news conference. He walked down the narrow hallway to the visitor’s locker room.

Allen normally has a pep in his step when he’s going from place to place. At that moment, Allen took one slow step after another. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, sporting a ghostly look as he approached his destination.

He knew what he was walking into. He knew the grieving had already begun. The death of a season that they weren’t ready to let go of — at least not yet. This one, a soul-sucking 32-29 loss to the Chiefs, one game shy of the Super Bowl, to add to the growing catalog of excruciating playoff exits.

As reporters entered the Bills’ locker room a few minutes after Allen, there was no hiding the somber mood. No one uttered a word amongst the 60-plus players sitting in there and all the staff members on top of it. Some faced outward from their locker toward the center. Others stared straight ahead at their lockers.

This was not the time for talking. The loudest conversation was the one the falling shower water had with the floor as it crashed into the bathroom tiles.

And there sat Allen, slumped in his locker stall. Still in full uniform. Grass stains on both sides of his shoulder pads. In many crushing losses, Allen will aimlessly scroll on his phone as an immediate coping mechanism. He began that routine but quickly cast the phone aside.

For the next ten-plus minutes, Allen sat in that stall, staring off into the distance. It’s a similar stare to the one he wears after challenging losses, with his body physically there but his mind dancing through the what-could-have-beens.

Offensive coordinator Joe Brady came up to him and gave Allen a hug. It’s the only thing that took Allen out of his trance temporarily. He stood up for the embrace and then retreated to his same spot, his same stare.

But this Allen stare felt different than all the others over the past five years. That’s probably because this 2024 Bills team felt differently than all the others.

To a man in that locker room, they all echoed the same thing. The mood around the building had been looser and lighter; they were playing free. The 2024 group was the first Bills team since the 2020 one that came into the year without heavy expectations placed on them, and they responded the same way. It was an authentic exuberance, simultaneously not sweating the small stuff while knowing something could be special about this group.

Win after win, most in impressive fashion, with a sense that this season could wind up being bigger than all the rest. It was less of an arrival than 2020, more of a ‘we told y’all we’re still here’ vibe. Back in 2020, they didn’t know what they didn’t know as they lost to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. It took them four years to return after three straight divisional round exits. In 2024, they knew all too well how playoff heartbreak felt and were armed with the necessary tools to make this the year they fought past it.

Or so they thought.

In the end, just as it always had been before, there stood the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce took their familiar places atop the raised platform with confetti littered all around it. The same venue as in the 2020 season, with the same result for the 2024 season.

It’s hard to ignore the parallels of how this most recent heartbreak represented the many stages of the Bills with Allen as their quarterback.

The game began just as Allen’s career did. The collected and cool Allen of 2024 was not the first to arrive. That opening game quarterback was the gunslinging Wyoming version of Allen, who took some big shots, some big hits and played with fire. For as many lasers he pinpointed into his receivers, he had just as many close calls with turnovers. There was some prisoner of the moment to his game, just as in his first three years.

After the Chiefs took a 21-10 lead, the second act of Allen showed up — the same one we had seen throughout the previous three seasons. Even in the face of terrible odds — little time at the end of the first half, down 11 points with the Chiefs set to get the ball back to begin the second half. Allen calmly diced up the Chiefs’ secondary play after play.

Off his pure talent alone, despite there not being an ounce of separation between Bills receiver Mack Hollins and Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie, Allen sent a pinpoint throw into the end zone to get the game back down to five points. Those teams from 2021 through 2023 lived and died with Allen’s ability to make the impossible throws seem plausible.

When the Bills arrived in the second half, it was the third act of Allen — the one we’ve seen all year long in 2024. The nerves were gone. He knew he didn’t have to do it all on his own, at least not at that moment. He watched as the offensive line creamed the Chiefs defensive line — a whopping 11 running plays out of a 12-play drive that gained 73 of the Bills’ 80 yards.

That effort gave them the lead, and they took that advantage into the fourth quarter. Even when the Chiefs fought back to retake the lead, Allen took a calm and collected approach and made the Chiefs defense pay when given the chance. He split the defense on a 32-yard firehose shot to Hollins. Then on 4th-and-4, he sent another fastball to Curtis Samuel in the back of the end zone, nearly knocking the receiver backward.

Brady let Allen down. He kept playing the hits on his playsheet despite the Chiefs knowing every word of the songs. It was an underwhelming showing by a coach many believed to be a head coaching candidate this offseason and unearthed some flaws in his overall play-calling predictability.

The successful tush push plays that had been a staple of their short-yardage situations were sussed out repeatedly. The Chiefs were ready for all the Bills’ commonly-called wide receiver screens. An utterly predictable, low-percentage fade route to Keon Coleman on a 3rd-and-goal rang supremely hollow as the Bills tried to tie things up at 29. Then there was the fourth down call — Allen’s final play — that was eerily similar to so many other ‘gotta have it’ calls Brady has made throughout the season. The Chiefs were ready for it, sent a corner blitz without any fear of repercussions and made Allen heave one up with nowhere else to go.

The defense let Allen down, too. They made adjustments and played far better in the second half, to allow only 11 points. But they allowed a Chiefs team that had yet to score 30 points at any time this season to do so against them. They let Mahomes get out of structure and scramble often after not permitting a rushing attempt in their Week 11 victory. They played a hefty amount of man coverage despite being a team better equipped for zone and had no answers for the speed of the Chiefs receivers Xavier Worthy and Hollywood Brown.

Their questionable secondary, which has had issues this season, lost its lone dependable asset when cornerback Christian Benford had to leave the game with a concussion. In his place, third-year player Kaiir Elam struggled mightily. Safety Damar Hamlin saved one of his worst games for the biggest stage when the Bills were without fellow starter Taylor Rapp. Outside of a handful of dropbacks, the defensive line didn’t give them much help either.

However, in the end, this Bills team was ultimately different despite having the same result as their previous four tries. They had the ball in their hands down only three points with 3:33 remaining. It was enough time for the Bills to move the ball down the field comfortably. With all their timeouts remaining, they could have done so in a balanced manner if they wanted to, taking one precious second after another off the clock to make sure that they slayed the Kansas City beast for good. One final touchdown drive would have likely catapulted them to the franchise’s first Super Bowl appearance in 31 years.

But in the end, the same outcome persisted, with the same franchise slamming the door in their face for the fourth time in five years. The Bills have never advanced to a round further than the Chiefs since Allen has been their quarterback. It’s a sobering, perhaps even more ruthless reality than the Bills franchise had to deal with when the Patriots dynasty was at its peak.

Last year’s playoff exit was met with a sense of finality. With a slew of free agents, an aging roster and cap concerns, the Bills knew hard decisions were coming. Many equated that to a step back in their championship chase. All it did was provide an opportunity for a step forward.

This year’s playoff exit to a Chiefs team they could have beaten will sting for some time. If the Bills never get that Super Bowl win with Josh Allen, 2024 could be viewed as the one that got away. On top of that, it will be difficult for the Bills to replicate the authenticity the 2024 season brought along. The newness and fresh feelings won’t carry over to 2025 because those lofty expectations from 2021 through 2023 will be back, with most of the same players returning for another go-round.

There is a sense of optimism for 2025 because of all those returning faces and an AFC East still seemingly in limbo for one more year, some cap space heading into the offseason and a bevy of draft picks. All of that is important as the Bills begin the daunting task of flushing the 2024 season and starting anew at the NFL Scouting Combine in a few weeks.

However, from this point forward, urgency is of the utmost importance. Allen will turn 29 years old in May — still somewhat young by quarterback standards, but another year without a Super Bowl win is another year of Allen’s prime the Bills and Allen will never get back. He is the best quarterback in franchise history and had the best single season of his NFL career in 2024. They have been spoiled by never having to go a game without him since their playoff streak began in 2019. All of these things are not guaranteed year over year with the older Allen gets, and as important as the optimism for 2025 remains, so too is the realism of the bigger picture.

Fireworks popped overhead as Bills players packed their suitcases. One by one, they filtered out of the locker room, heading to the team busses.

With most of the team cleared out, Allen remained, joined only by his thoughts, knowing how long the road was to return to this exact opportunity, knowing how fleeting these opportunities can be, comforted only by one ambiguous premise.

Maybe next year.

(Top photo: David Eulitt / Getty Images)