KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The NFL will announce its MVP in a couple of weeks, three days shy of Super Bowl LIX, and it’s virtually guaranteed to be someone who won’t be playing a competitive football game for the next eight months.

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is the odds-on favorite, of which he’s certainly deserving — you know, since it’s a regular-season honor and all. His exit from the playoffs doesn’t subtract from that, and, besides, the Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship Game was entertaining as heck.

But can we also acknowledge something else?

Only one quarterback played at his best Sunday, and it’s the guy who tends to play at his best this time of year.

The response to a thrilling AFC Championship Game, which the Chiefs won 32-29, is that we witnessed some sort of knock-down, drag-out battle between two quarterbacks who always embrace and provide drama when they meet. But really? In a proposed matchup of quarterback heavyweights, Allen didn’t hold up his end of the bargain this time.

Patrick Mahomes did. His season marches on. His dynasty marches on.

Allen has lost to Mahomes in the playoffs four times, the most defeats in a head-to-head matchup in NFL postseason history. But Sunday’s conference title game is the one that got away from him — even more than the 13-second miracle. In that Divisional Round classic three years ago, the best football game I’ve ever witnessed in person, Allen did everything he could to win.

He left some meat on the bone Sunday.

For starters, the outcome rested in his hands with three-plus minutes to play, and he couldn’t even advance the Bills to midfield.

But Buffalo was fortunate just to have a chance.

The first two passes Allen threw should’ve been intercepted. It’s remarkable the second wasn’t picked — he couldn’t have hit Chiefs cornerback Nazeeh Johnson in a better spot. Allen had a season-high three turnover-worthy passes in the game, per PFF, which also graded it as his worst game of the season. How about that?

There were five fumbles Sunday, and the Bills, in a minor miracle, recovered all five. And they still lost. Allen was responsible for three of those gaffes, by the way, including a snap he just plain dropped.

Allen graded out as the second most effective runner in the NFL this year in terms of expected points added (EPA). He totaled 59.3.

But his total on Sunday: -2.3, his worst mark of the year.

For all of the subplots in a game featuring the top two seeds in the AFC, don’t overthink what determined the outcome: the two quarterbacks.

The Bills’ best offense came because they asked Allen to sit in the sidecar for a third quarter as they ran the ball 15 times and threw it just once. That’s what turned the game in their favor, even if temporarily.

That aforementioned final possession with more than three minutes to play ought to include some regret, but Allen’s inability to recognize a blitz and slide the offensive line’s protection isn’t even the biggest one, because Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo tends to disguise things pretty well.

The regret should come from Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady. After all, he asked Allen to go win the game.

Where was James Cook? Where was the guy (and his offensive line) who brought the Bills back into it and even surged them in front?

The Bills had 3:33 on the clock when they took over, along with all three timeouts and the two-minute warning, and their season ended with four consecutive dropbacks that gained a total of 5 yards.

Why? Did they forget the previous hour?

Don’t get me wrong: Allen is the reason the Bills were here, in Kansas City, on championship weekend. He is the reason the Chefs actually lost a game in the regular season.

And he didn’t lose the Bills the game Sunday.

But the point here is he didn’t win it, either, and for the first time in these playoff matchups with Mahomes, he certainly had the opportunity to deliver the last blow.

A year ago, his kicker missed a game-tying field goal that would’ve sent the game to overtime. I’ve mentioned the 13-second game. He put his team in a good spot.

On Sunday, his team put him in a good spot. They gave him a drive to win it. This was his best chance yet.

Never against the Chiefs has Allen operated with the assistance of a running game for which he’s not solely responsible. In the three previous playoff meetings with KC, the Bills’ backfield never averaged more than 4.0 yards per carry. On Sunday, they ran 21 times for 108 yards, better than 5.1 per tote.

It was there.

Allen might not have thrown it away, but he sure let it slip. That isn’t a sentence that rang true in any of the previous three meetings.

“You’re not promised opportunities every year,” Allen told Buffalo reporters in a season-closing news conference Monday afternoon.

Which brings us here: It’s a roundabout but relevant reminder of the difference between the best regular-season quarterback of 2024 and the best postseason quarterback of the last half-decade. For a few years now, as Mahomes’ stats fail to measure up to some of his peers, a debate emerges about whether the the field chasing Mahomes is closing the gap.

But Allen missed an opening to advance to the Super Bowl, same as Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson missed an opening one year earlier.

Mahomes seizes on the crevices in January.

He seizes on the improbable, and only once in his life has he squandered the likely.

The Chiefs are left with a blend of the two. They’re one win shy of the first three-peat in NFL history — a three-peat that, when measured from its inception three years ago, would’ve had 1 in 1,231 odds.

A crevice, you could say.

With an open path now.

____

©2025 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.