Just before Super Bowl VI, those of a certain age may recall, then-Dallas running back Duane Thomas was asked about getting ready to play in “the ultimate game.”
“If it’s the ultimate game,” he told reporters, “how come they’re playing it again next year?”
Something about the riveting Chiefs-Bills game on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium reminded me of that.
The Bills prevailed 24-20, and good on them.
But it still was hard to think of this as anything but Round One between quite arguably the two best teams in the NFL after the latest edition of the recently enticing series between them.
If it was the ultimate game, why might they be playing again in a few months with far more meaning?
“We will be seeing the Bills again,” safety Justin Reid said. “We already know it.”
Like Reid, we figure this was just the preamble to the, uh, ultimate game between them. Or at least what could pass for it this postseason.
After all, the Chiefs (4-2) and Bills (5-1) played in January playoff encores after October regular-season meetings each of the last two seasons.
The Chiefs, of course, won each of those momentous sequels: 38-24 in the AFC Championship Game in 2020 and 42-36 in overtime in the divisional round last season.
The latter was after getting drubbed by the Bills 38-20 at Arrowhead last year.
Which is part of why no Chiefs fan should be freaked out by this loss — unsavory as it might have been to have the Bills score the game-winning touchdown with 1 minute, 4 seconds left. And for the game to effectively end on an ill-considered pass from Mahomes that was intercepted by Buffalo’s Taron Johnson.
The Chiefs lost this game for a lot of reasons, including terrific games by Buffalo’s Josh Allen (329 yards passing) and Stefon Diggs (10 catches for 148 yards) and Von Miller (two sacks among other moments harassing Mahomes).
But they also lost because of things they might reasonably be expected to handle better next time.
With starting cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Rashad Fenton out with injuries, rookies Jaylen Watson and Joshua Williams were at times over-exposed amid a blitz-heavy game plan.
Each will get better from this baptism, but the imminent return of McDuffie (also a rookie, but a No. 1 draft pick) and Fenton will bolster the Chiefs.
Next time around, the Chiefs also likely would prosper from the presence of linebacker Willie Gay, who certainly could have helped limit Allen and the Bills on the ground (125 yards). Gay is eligible to return to the Chiefs on Monday after serving a four-game suspension.
Maybe more than anything else we might anticipate playing out differently, though, is the performance of Mahomes — who has a well-documented penchant for being inspired and educated by setbacks.
No doubt this one will be in his craw, even after throwing for 338 yards, because of how it ended: both in terms of the loss itself and his forced pass to a double-covered Skyy Moore that snuffed out a would-be rally.
Afterward, Mahomes said he initially had looked to throw a corner route. But he was flushed out of the pocket by Miller, and then Matt Milano was closing on him as he tried to reset and throw around him.
“You’re at the end of the game,” he said. “You’re trying to press the issue.”
We’re so used to seeing the gravity-and logic-defying magic that mindset often produces that it’s almost more stunning to witness when it doesn’t.
Or as Andy Reid put it: “He was trying to make something happen. Normally, it does.”
Then there was the matter of Mahomes’ other interception, picked off in the end zone by Buffalo rookie Kaiir Elam on the Chiefs’ first drive of the game.
Even for someone possessed with the otherworldly artistry and uncanny sense of time and space enjoyed by Mahomes, there remains a fine line between finessing and forcing the action.
Certainly a line that also depends on the chemistry with the intended target.
In this case, Mahomes fired it for Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who appeared to get his hands on it only to have it plucked away by Elam. Asked about the play, Mahomes answered as diplomatically as ever but with some room for interpretation.
“I was trying to put it in that one spot that the receiver could get it and no one else could get it. Kind of that high point in the back corner of the end zone,” he said. “And we got our hands on it, but they made a great play.”
He added, “We can’t make those mistakes … I always believe in my guys and try to make those throws and give them a chance. But their guy made a play in a big point in the game.”
Whoever you might think made the mistake there, Mahomes or MVS, the real point is that they still are learning to play together and developing their rapport on the field.
Over time, each figures to get a better sense of the capacities of the other, what might be coming and will work where and when.
Including for where and when these two teams might meet again. Perhaps here once more. Or perhaps in Buffalo during a postseason that could feature the first road playoff games of Mahomes’ career.
Appealing as that might be, though, part of the trick now is to avoid any such assumptions.
Even if this felt like the best of the best against the best of the best, as Mahomes put it after the game, that hardly matters as the Chiefs prepare for their next game on Sunday at San Francisco.
First things first: “Get this dirty taste out of our mouth,” safety Justin Reid said.
As he pondered the idea of a rematch with the Bills, Mahomes said “you can definitely see” it as potentially inevitable but quickly added:
“But you can’t look ahead, and I think that’s the biggest thing to me. And I think I learned that last year in the AFC Championship game. Sometimes if you start looking ahead, that’s when you kind of get beat.”
As for us, though, we hope and expect their ultimate game awaits. At least their ultimate game this season.
