The Bills fell victim to a well-stacked Kansas City Chiefs squad, falling in the AFC Championship 38-24.
It will be Patrick Mahomes squaring off against Tom Brady in the Super Bowl on February 7th, as the Chiefs will play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers beat the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin in the NFC Championship to become the first team to play in a Super Bowl at their home stadium in NFL history.
But for Buffalo, it's a cold return to New York. But with lessons learned from the season that was. More after the jump.
The Buffalo Bills made moves after their Wild Card round exit against the Houston Texans last year to provide Josh Allen with targets to throw to.
Stephan Diggs turned out to be a major reason why Josh Allen has turned around the way he has. Once questioned about his accuracy, Allen became more reliable when using his arm, leading him to a nearly 70% completion percentage and being named the NFL Most Improved Player for 2020.
But Diggs was a non-factor in the AFC Championship, as the Kansas City Chiefs focused their corners and safeties on him. John Brown and Cole Beasley did as much as they could, but without Diggs being a major threat, the Bills couldn't keep pace with Mahomes's two top guns in Kelce and Hill.
So what went wrong?
Simply put, the Bills ran into a better team. The Bills have often taken advantage of the opposing team's mistakes in order to spark their offense during the course of the 2020 season, like against Pittsburgh and Baltimore when Pick-6's gave the team much needed energy.
The Kansas City Chiefs very seldom make mistakes. The muffed punt in the first quarter was all the Bills were going to get in this game.
And given the talents of Mahomes, Kelce, Hill and Edwards-Helaire, the Bills needed to put 7 on the board with their possessions.
After scoring the first nine points of the game, Kansas City took firm control of the game with three straight touchdowns, going up 21-9. The Bills drove down the field, but stalled out and was forced with a 4th and Goal on the KC 2 with less than a minute to go in the 1st half. They opted for the field goal.
The decision to go with the field goal was understandable. The Bills gave up 21 unanswered, and with Kansas City to get the ball first to begin the third quarter, going for it on 4th Down and missing would of been devastating for a team that was struggling to find their offense in that second quarter.
But it wasn't what the Bills needed. They needed to keep pace with the Chiefs.
They couldn't.
The Chiefs did exactly in this game what they did on a rainy Monday Night during Week 6 in Orchard Park. Expose the Bills weaknesses. The secondary seldom had answers for Kelce and Hill. The run defense got exposed by Edwards-Helaire and Darrel Williams.
They were the better team, and earned their spot in Super Bowl LV.
It was a great season for Buffalo, and while some Bills fans may feel upset about how this season crashed down in the AFC Championship, the end-all is that the components that led Buffalo to two playoff wins are young and will be back for years to come.
If the Bills take the lessons learned from this year's losses to Tennessee, Kansas City (twice) and Arizona, they will harden some of the holes in the team's foundation and solidify a team that could become a threat to topple Kansas City in 2021.
A stronger run defense and a better run game, and perhaps we could be talking about the Bills still playing and Kansas City heading for home at this point next year.
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