The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills are set to face off yet again in Sunday night’s AFC championship game with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. The fierce conference foes are plenty familiar with one another come wintertime—in the last five years, there’s only been one season in which the Chiefs and Bills haven’t faced off in the playoffs.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes currently holds the clear postseason edge against Bills’ Josh Allen with a 3-0 record. Allen, who is looking for his first career Super Bowl berth, will be hoping to rewrite that narrative at Arrowhead in a highly anticipated matchup that’s sure to come with plenty of controversy.
Amid recent outrage over the perception that Mahomes and the Chiefs are getting preferential treatment from the refs, CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore delivered a stern message to the officiating crew ahead of kickoff.
“Let them play physical, right up to that line of being a foul. Call the obvious and let the incidental/small stuff fall by the wayside,” Steratore wrote on X. “This is the conference championship game, it will be clean—both teams are exceptionally coached and aren’t new to this moment.”
🚨 This is it, #BUFvsKC. The storylines are endless and this game is immense. 🚨
— Gene Steratore (@GeneSteratore) January 26, 2025
🦓 My pregame message to the officiating crew:
Let them play physical, right up to that line of being a foul. Call the obvious and let the incidental/small stuff fall by the wayside.
This is the…
The head referee for the AFC championship tilt is Clete Blakeman, who is working his 16th career postseason game.
Mahomes found himself in the center of a nationwide debate after the Chiefs’ divisional round win over the Houston Texans, when the Kansas City quarterback benefitted from two questionable roughing the passer calls. A recent ESPN graphic appeared to back the notion that the Chiefs have held a massive penalty advantage in the postseason since 2021.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as CBS Rules Official Makes Plea to Refs Before Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship Game.
