Adam Teicher, ESPN Workforce Essayist
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As a tender soccer fan, Patrick Mahomes watched the admirable quarterback competition of the presen, Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning, and was hoping that at some point he might be part of one thing homogeneous.
Possibly now he’s. On Sunday, Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs will face Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills for the 3rd presen within the terminating 4 postseasons. That is along with the regular-season conferences in every of the moment 4 seasons.
“We’ve played in a lot of big games,” Mahomes stated Wednesday. “I’m excited for the challenge. I grew up watching those [Brady-Manning] games and remember how many memories I have from that, and hopefully we can play in these great games as well and give memories to the kids that come up behind us.”
Mahomes and Allen are pleasant. They had been teammates two years in the past in opposition to Brady and Aaron Rodgers in The Fit, the yearly famous person golfing match in Las Vegas.
“When you compete against your friends, you almost want to win even more because of it,” Mahomes stated. “Josh is a great dude. I respect the way he plays football and just the guy that he is. But when two guys that are ultracompetitive that are friends off the field go up against each other, we obviously both want to win. We see each other in the offseason, and you want to have a little bit of those bragging rights.”
Mahomes is 2-0 in opposition to Allen within the playoffs, together with an epic divisional spherical recreation two seasons in the past gained by means of the Chiefs 42-36 in extra time once they blended to throw for seven touchdowns and greater than 700 yards.
Mahomes is 1-3 in opposition to Allen within the steady season. The Expenses have gained 3 immediately, all at Arrowhead Stadium, and beat the Chiefs 20-17 this season in Year 14.
“The Bills are a great challenge,” Mahomes stated. “I think everybody understands that they’ve gotten my number a lot of times. We’ve been lucky enough to get them in the playoffs, but they beat us earlier this year. So we understand that we’re going to have to play our best football to win the game, especially at their place, but it’s not about ending someone’s season for us. It’s about just advancing, trying to find a way to survive and advance and get to the next round, and whatever that takes this weekend we’re going to try to do and try to go out there and win a football game.”
Sunday’s recreation at Highmark Stadium would be the first highway playoff recreation of Mahomes’ profession. Mahomes’ handiest profession recreation in Buffalo got here in 2020, when there have been incorrect lovers within the stadium because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve been lucky enough to play a lot of games at home at Arrowhead Stadium and just everything’s [fallen] that way,” Mahomes stated. “Now we get the great opportunity to go on the road, play in a hostile environment, one that I haven’t been able to play with fans in the stands, and even though I know it’s going to be hostile and there’s going to be people talking trash and everything like that, I’m excited for it because it’s one of the best environments in football, and you want to do that, when you grow up watching these games, is playing the best environments and see what it’s like.”
The Chiefs had a greater report this season clear of Arrowhead, going 6-2 out of doors Kansas Town and 6-4 at house together with terminating year’s wild-card win over the Miami Dolphins.
“I think it’s just coach [Andy] Reid,” Mahomes stated. “He preaches communication, and you have to have nonverbal communication whenever you’re playing on the road, and we try to do a good job of that, of just being able to be on the same page, being able to execute at a high level and then not letting anything be too positive or too negative.
“It’s simply staying even keeled and going about your small business the suitable approach. I believe that’s noteceable at the highway as a result of it sort of feels like one malicious play games is even magnified extra and a obese play games is magnified extra, and staying with the method is one thing that professor Reid preaches and we do a admirable activity of it.”
