Chiefs vs Bills: Inside the NFL’s Defining Rivalry

Kansas City and Buffalo meet on Thanksgiving night, 26 November, at Highmark Stadium — the first Thanksgiving game ever played in Buffalo. It’s the eleventh meeting between the two since 2020.

That number explains why this fixture carries weight no other current NFL matchup does. Two teams, two franchise quarterbacks, and an unusual amount of history compressed into a handful of seasons.

It started before either quarterback was born

The rivalry has roots deeper than the Mahomes–Allen era. The two franchises met in the 1966 AFL Championship Game, with Kansas City winning to advance to the very first Super Bowl.

They met again in the 1993 AFC Championship Game, where Buffalo won 30–13 on their way to their last Super Bowl appearance — a run that remains the closest the franchise has come to a title.

For decades after, they were simply two teams that occasionally played each other. What changed was 2018, when both Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen moved into starting roles in the same season.

The playoff record tells one story

Since 2020, these teams have met repeatedly in January, and the pattern has been remarkably one-sided in a way the regular season isn’t.

2020 AFC Championship — Chiefs 38, Bills 24. The first postseason meeting between Allen and Mahomes, and never especially close. Kansas City led by at least two scores for the final 34 minutes.

2021 Divisional Round — Chiefs 42, Bills 36 (OT). This is the one people mean when they say the rivalry produced one of the greatest games ever played. Four scoring drives in the final two minutes of regulation. Three go-ahead touchdowns inside the last two minutes — the first time that had happened in NFL history. Allen found Gabriel Davis for his fourth touchdown of the day to lead 36–33 with 13 seconds left.

Thirteen seconds proved enough. Mahomes moved Kansas City into range for a game-tying field goal as time expired, won the overtime toss, completed all six of his overtime throws, and finished it with a touchdown to Travis Kelce. Buffalo never touched the ball in overtime.

That game did more than any other to change the NFL’s overtime rules.

2023 Divisional Round — Chiefs 27, Bills 24. Closer again, same outcome.

The regular season tells another

Here’s the part that makes the rivalry genuinely interesting rather than simply lopsided: Allen has generally had the better of Mahomes when the stakes are lower.

As of early 2025, Allen held a 4–1 regular-season record against Kansas City while going 0–3 against them in the playoffs. Buffalo won their most recent regular-season meeting 28–21 in November 2025.

Across the whole history, Buffalo lead the all-time series — roughly 30–25–1 as of 2025, across more than fifty meetings. But Kansas City lead the playoff series 4–2.

A team that wins more often overall, and loses when it matters most. That’s an unusual shape for a rivalry, and it’s why it generates the emotion it does in Buffalo.

The numbers behind the playoff gap

The statistical split between the two quarterbacks in postseason meetings is stark.

Through their first three playoff matchups, Mahomes completed 75.2% of his passes against Buffalo, averaging 306 yards per game, with eight touchdowns and no interceptions, for a passer rating of 126.6.

Allen’s numbers over the same games weren’t poor — 267 yards per game, seven touchdowns, one interception, a rating of 98.9, plus 228 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. In most contexts that wins games.

It just hasn’t been enough against a quarterback playing at that level in January.

Why the league keeps scheduling it

The NFL has leaned into this fixture deliberately. Putting it on Thanksgiving night in 2026 — in Buffalo, for the first time in franchise history — is a scheduling decision made because the league knows what it draws.

Thanksgiving night is one of the largest television audiences of the American year. Giving that window to Mahomes and Allen, in a stadium where Kansas City have unfinished business, is not accidental.

What makes a rivalry, actually

Plenty of NFL fixtures are called rivalries because the teams share a division and play twice a year. This one qualifies differently.

Both teams have been genuinely good simultaneously. A rivalry needs both sides to matter. Cowboys–Eagles works partly because both have been strong recently; a rivalry where one team is consistently poor stops being a rivalry.

The games have decided something. Two AFC Championship Games and multiple Divisional Rounds. These aren’t exhibition fixtures with a nice atmosphere — they’ve repeatedly determined who reaches the Super Bowl.

There’s a narrative that hasn’t resolved. Allen has beaten Mahomes plenty. He hasn’t beaten him in January. Until that changes, every meeting carries the same question, and the question is what makes people watch.

The Thanksgiving meeting

26 November, Highmark Stadium, 8:20 PM ET on NBC, streaming on Peacock.

Buffalo will have home field on a night the sport rarely visits them. Kansas City arrive as the team that has ended Buffalo’s season more than once. Whatever the standings look like by late November, that framing won’t change.