KANSAS CITY, Mo. — History awaits the Kansas City Chiefs.
Standing in their path? The mighty Philadelphia Eagles.
The Chiefs, looking to become the first NFL franchise to win three consecutive Super Bowls, made it back to the league’s biggest stage Sunday with a 32-29 win over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game.
Patrick Mahomes ran for two touchdowns and threw for a third. Harrison Butker made a 35-yard field goal with 3 minutes, 33 seconds remaining to put the Chiefs up for good.
That’s when Kansas City’s defense took over, applying heavy pressure to Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen, whose backpedaling heave on fourth and four fell through the arms of diving tight end Dalton Kincaid on the ensuing possession.
From there, the Chiefs were able to run out the clock.
In two weeks, Kansas City will play Philadelphia, which soundly beat the NFC East rival Washington Commanders earlier Sunday in the NFC title game.
So, New Orleans will play host to a rematch of the Super Bowl from two years ago, when the Chiefs beat the Eagles, 38-35.
In that game, Mahomes threw a pair of touchdown passes in the fourth quarter as Kansas City overcame a 10-point halftime deficit.
The Chiefs defense kept the pressure on Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) during the AFC championship game.
(Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
The rematch also sets up a potential three-peat for Andy Reid, coach of the Chiefs and former coach of the Eagles. In fact, he’s the winningest NFL coach in both Kansas City and Philadelphia.
The Eagles crushed the Commanders 55-23 to win for the 15th time in 16 games since starting the season 2-2. As usual, they were led by 2,000-yard rusher Saquon Barkley, who contributed three touchdown runs, including a 60-yarder.
By beating the Bills, the Chiefs already have made NFL history. Of the eight previous teams to win back-to-back Super Bowls, three made it to the conference championship game but lost. The Chiefs are the first back-to-back winners to get back for a third trip.
This was the seventh straight appearance in a conference championship for the Chiefs, second only to the eight in a row reached by the New England Patriots during the glorious era of quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick.
With the victory, which came on a clear night at Arrowhead Stadium, the Mahomes-led Chiefs improved to 4-0 in the postseason against Allen and the Bills. That was especially confounding for Buffalo, which has four regular-season victories over these Chiefs.
The Bills had a chance to make it back to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1993 season, when they lost their fourth of four consecutive appearances.