Jos Allen vs Patrick Mahomes: Superstars of the NFL and its next great rivalry | NFL News

Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes go head-to-head for a fifth time in their NFL careers on Sunday, live on Sky Sports

The success of the NFL as a brand feeds off one particular position like no other sport. Quarterbacks take top billing, and there are none with greater star power right now than Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.

“It’s a clash of the titans, an AFC Championship game preview. That’s what I expect,” former NFL quarterback Chris Simms said on NBC’s Pro Football Talk this week.

“It’s the marquee matchup of the sport right now.

“He [Mahomes] knows who is coming to town. He knows that it’s the only guy who is a real threat to his throne as the greatest quarterback in the game right now.”

Sunday will be the fifth time in the space of two years that the two teams have clashed, with Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs currently boasting a 3-1 advantage over Allen’s Bills, including victory in their most recent meeting, an epic 42-36 overtime success in the divisional round of the playoffs last season.

An incredible 25 points were scored in the final one minute and 54 seconds of regulation alone, as Allen and Mahomes repeatedly (and with some speed) drove their teams down the field and found the endzone to see the lead again switch hands.

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Highlights of the incredible overtime finish to the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills’ playoff meeting last year.

Allen and the Bills had seemingly finally nosed ahead for good courtesy of his fourth touchdown pass of the day to Gabe Davis with only 13 seconds left on the clock. But that, incredibly, still proved to be enough time for Mahomes to engineer a game-tying field goal opportunity for Kansas City.

The kick was good and ultimately the Chiefs ran out victorious in overtime as Mahomes hit Travis Kelce for the game-winning TD, with Allen not getting the chance to possess the football under the old ‘golden goal’ style overtime rules that have since been amended for the playoffs.

The Bills, having also had their Super Bowl dreams shattered by the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game the year before, strengthened in the offseason, most notably at linebacker with the addition of veteran pass rusher Von Miller, fresh from lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy with the Los Angeles Rams last season.

As such, coming into the 2022 campaign, Buffalo were many people’s favourites. And the first five weeks of the season has done nothing to dispel that notion, with the Bills winning four from five and boasting the league’s top-ranked total offense (440.4 yards per game) and passing offense (324.0 YPG). They are also second in scoring (30.4 points per game), bettered only by, yes, the Chiefs (31.8).

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Watch the best plays from the 2022 season from Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

It means that Buffalo are actually favoured by the bookmakers going into Sunday ‘s meeting, with Mahomes and the Chiefs underdogs at home for, incredibly, the first time in his five-year career as a starting quarterback in the NFL.

“That is the kind of thing that he will shrug about, but you know that it will be burning away at him, that he is not considered the favourite to win a game in his stadium,” Pro Football Talk presenter Mike Florio said. “That is going to give him a little extra kick.

“Publicly, Mahomes would say ‘I don’t care about that’. But privately, he’ll find a way to use that to get himself just a little more fired up about the challenge to come.”

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Watch the best plays from the 2022 season by Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

The only blemish on Buffalo’s record so far this season came in Week Three, a 21-19 loss to the Miami Dolphins in a bizarre game that the stats would tell you they otherwise utterly dominated, finishing with 497 total yards of offense compared to only 212 for Miami.

The Chiefs, meanwhile, boast an identical 4-1 record, having also slipped up in Week Three, suffering a surprise 20-17 defeat to the then-winless Indianapolis Colts. They have recovered fairly emphatically since, however, putting 41 points up on Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a week later, before then bettering the Las Vegas Raiders last Monday night.

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Check out the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes’ best plays as he enjoyed a four-TD game in Week Five against the Las Vegas Raiders.

The stage is now set for another classic showdown between with two teams on Sunday – live on Sky Sports NFL from 9.25pm – with Allen and Mahomes again in the starring roles. And it certainly won’t be their last epic encounter either – perhaps not even this season.

As Allen and the Bills look to rectify that playoff heartbreak of their previous meeting, is it finally their time? Sky Sports’ resident coach, Jeff Reinebold, certainly thinks so.

“As my friend Ric Flair says, ‘to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man’. And this needs to be the time where the Bills beat the man.

“To do it in Kansas City, that won’t be easy – it is going to be off in that stadium – but I really do feel like it is Buffalo’s time now.”

Reinebold’s Inside The Huddle podcast partner, presenter Neil Reynolds, concurs: “The Bills are ascending. I actually think this is their year.”

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Josh Allen found Buffalo Bills wide receiver Gabe Davis for an incredible 98-yard touchdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers last week.

But regardless of the outcome on Sunday’s contest between the two, the NFL’s future truly is in safe hands with Allen and Mahomes leading from the front a crop of exciting young talent at quarterback which includes, but is not limited to, Joe Burrow and last season’s AFC champion-Cincinnati Bengals, Jalen Hurts and the unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles and Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers.

It serves as a blessed relief for the sport, particularly as Brady’s two-decade long dominance of the NFL finally appears to be drawing to an end.

The now 45-year-old has a record seven Super Bowl titles to his name, and while he could yet still add to that haul this season, the expectation is – having retired in the offseason before then changing his mind a few weeks later – that this will indeed be his last go round.

Peyton Manning (L) and Tom Brady (R) enjoyed a great rivalry in the early 2000s with the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots

And, at the heart of the relentless success Brady enjoyed over the years, it should be noted, was a truly great rivalry.

“Mahomes-Allen is like what Peyton Manning and Tom Brady was for the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots back in the day,” former NFL defensive back Will Blackmon told Sky Sports this week.

“Or like in the 1990s, when it was only the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC. It was always going to be one of those teams that was going to the Super Bowl.

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Patrick Mahomes came up with more magic this season as he flicked a touchdown pass to Clyde Edwards-Helaire after a 360 spin move against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“Allen and Mahomes are just two of the craziest, most competitive QBs in the league. They can take over a game on their own.”

The NFL thrives of its dynasties, and every David needs its Goliath to topple. It is incumbent now on Allen and Mahomes, Bills and Chiefs, to carry the baton long into the next decade. On the evidence so far, they look plenty capable.

Watch Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs host Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, live on Sky Sports NFL from 9.25pm, Sunday.