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NFL stunned by ‘ridiculous’ ending to Kansas City Chiefs vs Buffalo Bills playoffs epic

The NFL playoffs have produced one of the greatest games in history, and the jawdropping final stages have to be seen to be believed.

Matthew Sullivan
2 min read
January 24, 2022 - 3:15PM
That ending of the Chiefs-Bills game was absolutely wild.
That ending of the Chiefs-Bills game was absolutely wild.

The Kansas City Chiefs are one win away from the Super Bowl after they defeated the Buffalo Bills 42-36 in one of the greatest games in NFL playoffs history.

The final game of the NFL Divisional Round produced a shootout for the ages between star quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.

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Both quarterbacks put on an absolute clinic as the game went down to wire in the fourth quarter in an insane few minutes of football.

It appeared the Chiefs were headed for victory, only for Allen to find Gabriel Davis in the end zone for his fourth touchdown of the game to give Buffalo a 36-33 lead.

After the Bills added the extra two points, the Chiefs had just 13 seconds to try and move their way up the field to get within realistic field goal territory.

Mahomes somehow sliced through the Bills’ defence and gained 50 yards to set up a 48-yard field goal, which the Chiefs nailed to tie the score at 36-36 and send the game to overtime.

Remarkably, 25 points were scored in the last 1 minute and 54 seconds of game time in the fourth quarter.

The topsy-turvy nature of the dying stages of the game as Allen and Mahomes went to work is captured best by the graphic below, which attempted to predict which team would win.

NFL fans, including diehard Bills supporter Daniel Ricciardo, couldn’t believe their eyes as the lead changed hands several times in the last few minutes.

Kansas City won the all-important coin toss that determines which team starts overtime with the ball and they drove up the field to score the decisive touchdown to secure an incredible win.

But many fans were up in arms at the overtime finish, which they said highlighted the dumbest rule in world sports.

Under NFL overtime rules, if the team that wins the toss scores a touchdown on their first posession, they win the game, rather than playing out the entire 15-minute overtime period.

Patrick Mahomes played the game of his life for the Kansas City Chiefs against the Buffalo Bills. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Patrick Mahomes played the game of his life for the Kansas City Chiefs against the Buffalo Bills. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Viewers said it was complete injustice Allen had to watch from the sidelines and wasn’t even given the chance to try help his team win.

Sports reporter Emily Giangreco tweeted: “OT rules have got to change. Makes absolutely no sense.”

AFL reporter Riley Beveridge said: “It’s an absolute travesty that Josh Allen doesn’t touch the ball in OT.”

Australian comedian Adam Rozenbachs said: Not sure there’s a worse rule in sport than the NFL’s ‘win the toss in OT, only one team gets a chance to score a TD’.”

Fox Sports’ Max Laughton added: “The Bills have been sacrificed to force the NFL to fix the obvious problems with overtime over the offseason.”

The victory sees the Chiefs advance to their fourth AFC Championship match in four years, where they will face the Cinncinati Bengals next week.

The game capped an incredible weekend of closely-fought NFL match-ups, after the Bengals, San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams all won with last-second field goals.

Originally published as NFL stunned by ‘ridiculous’ ending to Kansas City Chiefs vs Buffalo Bills playoffs epic

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