NFL analyst: Bills are Super Bowl contenders but must slay 'the boogeyman' to get there

When Nate Burleson visited Buffalo Bills training camp at St. John Fisher University a few weeks ago, nothing he saw on the practice field or heard in his conversations with coaches and players altered his expectation for their 2025 season.

“This is a damn good team. This is a Super Bowl contender. They have everything,” said Burleson, the former NFL wide receiver turned crossover media star as one of the hosts of CBS Mornings as well as the work he does every weekend with the gang on The NFL Today pregame show.

“They have everything - offense, defense, and playmakers on special teams,” he continued. “Now, when you get to the postseason, how do you close out those games against the boogeyman, which is Patrick Mahomes?”

Yes, it always comes down to that with the Bills, doesn’t it? We know it, and so do national observers like Burleson who have watched the drama play out for five years as the Bills have dominated the AFC East, but taken things no further.

Bills vs Chiefs playoff history: Buffalo hasn't 'been able to get it done in the end'

The Bills couldn’t beat Mahomes and the Chiefs in the 2020 AFC Championship Game, though that was at the very beginning of their current run of unbridled success and both Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane admitted they weren’t ready to take that step.

They couldn’t do it in the 2021 divisional round, the infamous 13 seconds debacle; they couldn’t do it in the 2023 divisional round, that one at home in a season when they probably were the better team which added a couple extra layers of mortification; and they couldn’t do it in the 2024 AFC Championship Game.

“I don’t think it’s a mental thing because there have been moments where they had an opportunity to win those games,” Burleson said, recalling that with the exception of the first AFC title game, the Chiefs won the other three games by a combined 12 points. “But let’s keep it real. We’ve been saying that every year with this team, and they haven’t been able to get it done in the end.”

The key to the Bills winning their first Super Bowl

Barring a catastrophe of a season, the Bills will enter January with another great chance to earn their first Super Bowl berth since the 1993 season. Whether it’s the Chiefs standing in their way again, or perhaps another team like the Ravens or Bengals or Broncos or Texans, will good fortune finally smile on the Bills?

Burleson - who played 11 NFL seasons with the Vikings, Seahawks and Lions and caught 457 passes for 5,630 yards and 39 TDs - believes it can. But to scale the Empire State Building-sized obstacle that has blocked their path to the Super Bowl, they have to finally meet the moment when the moment to win the game arrives.

For instance, failing to cover two plays on defense in those last 13 seconds of regulation which enabled the Chiefs to kick a game-tying field goal and led to their overtime victory. Or driving into position on their final offensive possession to, at minimum, kick a tying field goal, only to see Allen misfire twice and Tyler Bass miss the kick. Or last season, Dalton Kincaid killing their last chance when he failed to make a fourth-down catch that, while not easy, should have been made.

Those are the things the Chiefs have been doing for years which is why they have won nine straight AFC West titles, played in the last seven AFC Championship Games, won five of them, and won three Super Bowls.

Burleson pointed to the Kincaid play as the perfect encapsulation of why the Chiefs keep beating the Bills in the postseason.

“I remember that final play, the Chiefs bring the blitz and Josh is retreating, makes an amazing throw, and it hits the ground,” Burleson. “And that was the moment where it was over.”

That was the final result, but Burleson said that more than Kincaid’s inability to reel in the pass, it was what led up to the snap that proved to be the difference.

“What I would have loved to have seen in that play is understanding that you know the opposing team’s defensive coordinator (Steve Spagnuolo) is gonna pull something out of his back pocket,” Burleson said. “You know the blitz is coming; have a plan. If you have a plan or two or three, you’re not going to be retreating that much because you know where the blitz is coming from, or at least you know how to pick it up. And if you know how to pick it up or know what’s coming, you’re not only going to make a play, you’re probably going to gash them for a touchdown.”

Burleson: The difference between winning and losing can be one play

Burleson made it clear that he wasn’t blaming anyone in particular - not Allen, not Kincaid, not the offensive line, and not offensive coordinator Joe Brady. Rather, he was giving credit to the Chiefs players and coaches for always finding a way to do the right thing when it matters most.

“You look at the Chiefs,” Burleson said, “you bring the blitz to them late in the game and it seems like they’ve always got an answer. And therein lies the difference between a team that is ready for every scenario, looking at the outcome of every blitz that may be coming their way versus a team that might have been slightly caught off guard.

“That’s the difference. It’s one play and it just seems like the teams that win Super Bowls or at least go to Super Bowls are the ones that they’re always prepared for that fourth-quarter play. And occasionally we see the Bills being caught off guard and that drives me crazy.”

Yeah, it drives Bills fans crazy, too.

Only the Chiefs (66) have won more regular-season games since the start of 2020 than the Bills (61). Also, those are the only two teams in the league who have won at least one playoff game in all five of those seasons, but Kansas City’s total is 13 compared to Buffalo’s seven, largely because their four meetings with each other have all gone the Chiefs’ way.

The time has come for Buffalo to reverse that trend. It has the reigning NFL MVP playing at the peak of his powers; it has a star running back in James Cook running behind one of the best offensive lines in the league; and it has a receiving corps that while not populated by stars, still managed to help Allen put up a franchise-record 525 points last year.

Offensively, the Bills should be fine, but it is an undeniable fact that the heat will be on Allen and company to continue to score in bunches because while the Bills made some notable changes to a defense that did only one thing well last season which was create takeaways, it is still a unit with some big questions that need to be answered, particularly in the back end and up front in the pass rush.

Burleson has no doubt the Bills are one of the elite teams in the league, but he added, “Let’s keep it real because we’ve been saying that every year with this team.”

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills could win Super Bowl, but must meet moment vs Chiefs