ORCHARD PARK – From the moment Josh Allen went careening and pinballing his way into the end zone at Highmark Stadium two months and two days ago, it just felt like destiny was demanding that the Buffalo Bills would eventually play the Kansas City Chiefs for the right to go to Super Bowl 59.

That night, Allen’s 26-yard touchdown run – which at that point in Week 11 was widely considered to be the play of the year in the NFL, in what was then being called the game of the year – put the finishing touches on the Bills’ 30-21 victory and ended Kansas City’s dream of a perfect season.

Given the history between these two franchises – one tortured, one blessed – a Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship Game just felt like the only way to determine who the best team in the conference was.

Well, here we go as the Bills defeated the Baltimore Ravens 27-25 on a night not even an ice cube could enjoy, a pulsating, down to the final minute thriller, and Buffalo will indeed get the chance to exorcize its postseason demons against a dynastic Chiefs team that has ended its season in three of the previous four Januarys.

“The regular season is what the regular season is and it doesn’t matter how well you perform because when you get to the playoffs it doesn’t really matter,” he said, trying as hard as he could to defuse the Bills-Chiefs rivalry talk. “(The Chiefs) are a team that we beat early in the season but it’s not the same team, they got some guys back on their defense and their offense and I can’t tell you enough now, I don’t know much about it because I’ve been focusing on the Ravens so, we’ll get into that tomorrow.”

Fine, he can mute the fervor, but it’s real. The Ravens were a worthy adversary, and a team that, had they won, most certainly could have gone to Kansas City and given the Chiefs a tremendous battle. But Bills-Chiefs is the game everyone wants to see. It was the game everyone wanted to see on Nov. 17, and will be again only this time, the winner goes to New Orleans.

“I just know we’re going to work hard,” Allen said. “We’re going to enjoy this one tonight, turn our attention to the Chiefs tomorrow. We know what they are. They’re the perennial of what you want to be in the NFL.”

There were moments Sunday night when the Buffalo defense struggled and in the end, the Ravens ran for 176 yards, totaled 416, and went 7-of-10 on third down. But the ultimate difference was once again that unit’s ability to take the ball away as it forced three turnovers, and the 10 points the Bills scored off those turnovers proved to be what separated two of the best teams in the NFL.

“It was uncharacteristic to have turnovers like that,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “There were opportunities for us to not have those, but we had them. You try to bounce back from them in the course of the game but you can’t take them back.”

And then, the defense got incredibly lucky in the game’s biggest moment when, after allowing a way-too-easy 88-yard touchdown drive, Ravens star tight end Mark Andrews bailed the Bills out by dropping the tying two-point conversion pass with 1:33 left to play.

“One play doesn’t define anybody,” said Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton. “He’s the all-time leading touchdown receiver in Ravens history. He’s been a consistent beacon of success the whole time he’s been here.”

And that’s true, but on that play, and another mammoth play about eight minutes earlier, Andrews failed. On the first one, with the score 24-19, Andrews caught a pass over the middle but then was stripped by Terrel Bernard who also recovered the fumble, and that third takeaway enabled the Bills to drive to a Tyler Bass field goal which proved to be the winning score.

“He found a soft spot in the zone and we rallied to the ball,” Bernard said. “I saw him cut back and, really, all I saw was the ball and tried to get it out. These conditions, the ball is wet and slippery. Something that we had talked about all week was really trying to attack the ball. I was lucky enough to get it out there.”

Just like their wild-card game against Denver, the Bills defense got off to a brutal start as the Ravens moved right downfield to Lamar Jackson’s 16-yard TD pass to Rashad Bateman. They could have gotten off the field on the first third down but allowed Jackson to scramble for a first down, and that led to a 39-yard pass to Isaiah Likely before the TD.

Buffalo answered immediately with an 11-play, 70-yard drive that featured nine running plays, the last a one-yard TD plunge by Ray Davis. The Bills had their own early third down, and Allen hit Khalil Shakir for 34 yards down the seam, and then Allen converted a fourth-and-2 with a seven-yard keeper to keep the march moving.

Taylor Rapp intercepted Jackson a few plays later, but the Bills could no nothing with the turnover. However, they did plenty with the next Baltimore miscue. Jackson dropped to pass, slipped, and when he tried to get up and run he but was hit by Damar Hamlin and the ball slipped out of his hands. Von Miller picked it up and the 35-year-old chugged 39 yards to the Ravens 24.

From there, Allen needed only four plays before his one-yard keeper gave the Bills a 14-7 lead.

The Ravens were headed right back to a tying touchdown, but the defense held inside the 5 and they settled for a 26-yard Justin Tucker field goal, and then the Bills closed the half with a master class of a late-half possession, a nine-play, 70-yard drive which was capped by Josh Allen’s four-yard keeper on third-and-2 from the 4-yard line with 16 seconds left for a 21-10 advantage at the break.

Things took a severe turn in the third quarter, though. The Bills went three-and-out to start, failing to get their double dip. And their second possession also stalled and they punted on both. Meanwhile, the Ravens got right back into it as they drove to a 47-yard Tucker field goal, then made the Bills defense look silly on a seven-play, 80-yard drive that featured 46 yards by Derrick Henry, the last five taking him across the goal line. The Bills did prevent the two-point conversion, so they remained ahead 21-19.

The Bills pushed the lead to 24-19 with 12:04 remaining when another drive stalled and Tyler Bass drilled a 51-yard field goal. And then came the Andrews gaffe, which happened to be his first lost fumble since 2019.

The Bills looked like they were on their way to a put-away touchdown, but Allen was stopped on second- and third-down runs inside the 5, and Sean McDermott opted for a 21-yard Bass field goal to push the lead to 27-19, pinning his hopes on the defense to make one more stop.

It did not get it as Jackson directed a brilliant 88-yard touchdown drive which he ended with a 24-yard TD pass to Likely, but then Andrews let the tying points slip through his fiingers.

Still, the game wasn’t over, and with hearts pumping out of chests, Rasul Douglas made a textbook recovery of the onside kick, and the Bills ran out the clock.

“These guys believed, they played to win, and you find a way, right?” McDermott said. “Every year’s different. There’s different reasons for everything – every one of those situations that didn’t end up in our favor, and then the same thing tonight.”

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, and he has written numerous books about the history of the team. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social. Sign up for his Bills Blast newsletter here: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast