In seven years as a starter, Patrick Mahomes has gone to seven AFC Championships. He has won five of those, with the two losses coming at the hands of Tom Brady and Joe Burrow. That dominance has kept two of the best quarterbacks of their generation, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, from reaching the heights they should.
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Jackson has had his playoff dreams ended by Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs once, while Allen and his Buffalo Bills have fallen to K.C. in the postseason in four of the last five years. The one time Allen and Jackson did tangle in the playoffs, in last year’s Divisional round, Allen’s Bills came out with a 27-25 victory. So, when will Mahomes’ torment of his MVP peers end?
Many believed last year was going to be the one for the Bills, as the Chiefs were clearly a lesser version of their previous selves, but Buffalo once again fell away late in the game. Stephen A. Smith now believes that 2025 will be the season when Allen and company finally get the proverbial Mahomian monkey off their back and reach the Super Bowl. And he’s backing Allen to overcome that obstacle before Jackson figures it out.
“When the Buffalo Bills have shown up in the playoffs, it’s rare in the day that we’ve looked at Josh Allen and said he was the reason they didn’t get over the hump. He was the reason they didn’t get it done,” the analyst said.
“There have been a few occasions where we’ve looked at Lamar Jackson and he’s come up short. I don’t think there’s more pressure on anybody, more so than him, out of the AFC, when you consider the personnel that’s there.”
In a rare occurrence, the other guest on First Take, Ryan Clark, actually agreed with Smith. He believes that this will be the year that Mahomes is dethroned, and he believes that Allen has proven in their previous duels that he can get the better of Mahomes if he gets a few key contributions from his teammates.
“I have more trust in Josh Allen is because I’ve seen him perform on the biggest stages. Whether it’s the AFC Championship, the Divisional round in the playoffs. Standing across from Patrick Mahomes, there was no difference in the way that those two quarterbacks led their team.”
Clark also referenced the ending of last year’s AFC Championship defeat for the Bills. Chiefs DB Trent McDuffie came in unblocked on the blitz on the final fourth down of the game. Allen launched one past the first down marker and gave his receiver, Dalton Kincaid, a chance, but the TE was unable to make the play.
The stats and the tape back up what Clark and Smith are saying. Allen has dominated Mahomes in the regular season, going 4-1. But Allen also has a 100.2 passer rating in those four playoff losses to the Chiefs, throwing nine TDs against one INT. He also averaged 66.8 rushing yards per game in those defeats.
Meanwhile, Lamar Jackson has not been up to snuff against Mahomes. He’s just 1-4 against his K.C. foe in the regular season. And he wasn’t great in his only playoff matchup with the Chiefs either.
In that one, the 2023 AFC Championship, Jackson completed just 54 percent of his passes and threw one TD and one INT. He also had just eight rushes for 54 yards and took four sacks. He led a TD drive on the second possession of the game, and managed only one field goal the rest of the way. We all know about the Zay Flowers fumble, but Jackson’s interception on the next drive was just as damning.
It certainly seems Allen is the one with the pedigree to finally topple Mahomes in the AFC. But let’s not forget about that restocked Bengals offense behind Joe Burrow either.
