On Sunday, November 17, 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs came to Orchard Park at 9-0. They were the two-time defending Super Bowl champions, they had won 15 games in a row counting the playoffs, and a week earlier they had beaten Denver 16-14 by blocking a field goal on the last play. The Buffalo Bills were 8-2 and a 2.5-point favorite. Buffalo won 30-21.
The game turned on one decision with 2:27 left: fourth-and-2 at the Kansas City 26, Bills up by two, and Sean McDermott chose not to kick. The teams meet in Buffalo again on Thanksgiving night, Thursday, November 26, 2026, at 8:20 p.m. ET (3:20 a.m. Friday in Cairo), the first Thanksgiving home game in Bills history.
An interception on the first pass
Patrick Mahomes’ first throw of the day, on the Chiefs’ second snap, was a deep ball for Noah Gray that Taylor Rapp intercepted at the Buffalo 45. An unnecessary-roughness flag on A.J. Epenesa during the return pushed the Bills back to their own 35, and they scored anyway. Josh Allen hit Amari Cooper for 30 yards on third-and-6, Khalil Shakir for 11 and Curtis Samuel for 15 on third-and-8, and James Cook ran in from the 3. Tyler Bass missed the extra point wide right. It was 6-0.
Kansas City answered with an 88-yard drive from its own 12. Xavier Worthy caught a 31-yard pass, guard Mike Caliendo reported as eligible and caught a 5-yarder on third-and-1, and Worthy converted a third-and-4 with a 14-yard catch to the Buffalo 10 as the first quarter ended. On the first snap of the second, Mahomes found Worthy in the right flat for a 10-yard touchdown. The Chiefs led 7-6.
Buffalo went back in front. Allen threw 24 yards to Dawson Knox and 25 to Cooper along the right sideline to the 6, a catch the Chiefs challenged and lost, and Cook scored again on the next play. Then Allen made his one mistake: on fourth-and-3 at the Kansas City 34, he threw for Knox and Chamarri Conner intercepted, returning it 29 yards to the Buffalo 40. Mahomes hit Gray for 14 yards and Peyton Hendershot for 11 to the 2, and on third-and-goal he threw to Gray for the touchdown. Kansas City led 14-13 with 2:51 left in the half.
It did not last to halftime. Allen took the Bills from their 23 to the Kansas City 14 with a 21-yard throw to Samuel and a 12-yarder to Mack Hollins, and Bass kicked a 33-yard field goal with five seconds left. Buffalo led 16-14 at the break.
A scoreless third quarter, then three touchdown drives
Neither team scored in the third quarter. The Chiefs took a delay-of-game penalty on a fourth-and-1 at their own 29 and punted. Buffalo’s first real chance came late in the quarter, when Conner was flagged for pass interference on Samuel on third-and-9 from the Bills’ 18, a 22-yard penalty. Shakir then turned a dump-off into a 22-yard gain, and four plays into the fourth quarter Allen threw to Samuel in the right flat for a 12-yard touchdown. It was 23-14.
Mahomes brought the Chiefs right back. Kareem Hunt ran for 17 yards, Justin Watson caught a 16-yarder, and a pass-interference call on Christian Benford put the ball at the 1. Hunt was stopped on first down. On second, Mahomes threw to Gray in the back corner of the end zone. With 7:53 to play, Buffalo led 23-21.
Fourth-and-2
The Bills’ next drive ate up most of the time left. Allen threw 15 yards to Hollins, ran for 9 and then for 2 on third-and-1, and converted a third-and-9 with a 10-yard throw to Shakir, who limped off and came back. On third-and-2 at the Kansas City 26, Ty Johnson was stopped for no gain, and the Chiefs called their first timeout with 2:27 left.
A field goal would have made it 26-21 and given Mahomes the ball back, needing a touchdown. McDermott sent the offense back out. Allen looked at Johnson, open but short of the marker, then tucked the ball and ran up the right hash. Linebacker Nick Bolton hit him with a shoulder and safety Bryan Cook wrapped him up near the goal line, but Allen’s momentum carried both of them into the end zone. It was a 26-yard touchdown, and after Bass’ extra point Buffalo led 30-21 with 2:17 to play.
“They’re just way too good to not go for it there,” McDermott said. He said he had mapped out that situation during the week. Allen put it this way: “Any time you give the ball back to Pat, that offense, down six with the game on the line, I like their odds in that situation. So wanting six or seven to try to make it a two-score game.” He added, “I appreciated coach for trusting us.” The fourth-down rules and how often teams go for it are explained in our guide.
Kansas City had one more chance. On fourth-and-3 from its own 48, Mahomes scrambled 18 yards, but tackle Jawaan Taylor was called for holding. On fourth-and-13, Mahomes threw deep for Travis Kelce, and linebacker Terrel Bernard intercepted at the Buffalo 29 with just over a minute left. Allen knelt twice.
| Quarter | Time | Team | Scoring play | Score (KC-BUF) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 10:04 | BUF | James Cook 3-yard run (Tyler Bass kick missed) | 0-6 |
| 2nd | 15:00 | KC | Xavier Worthy 10-yard pass from Patrick Mahomes (Spencer Shrader kick) | 7-6 |
| 2nd | 10:13 | BUF | Cook 6-yard run (Bass kick) | 7-13 |
| 2nd | 2:53 | KC | Noah Gray 2-yard pass from Mahomes (Shrader kick) | 14-13 |
| 2nd | 0:05 | BUF | Bass 33-yard field goal | 14-16 |
| 4th | 12:57 | BUF | Curtis Samuel 12-yard pass from Josh Allen (Bass kick) | 14-23 |
| 4th | 7:59 | KC | Gray 1-yard pass from Mahomes (Shrader kick) | 21-23 |
| 4th | 2:27 | BUF | Allen 26-yard run (Bass kick) | 21-30 |
The numbers
Allen completed 27 of 40 passes for 262 yards with a touchdown and an interception, was not sacked, and led the Bills in rushing with 55 yards on 12 carries, two of them kneel-downs. Cook scored twice but ran for only 20 yards on nine carries. Mahomes threw three touchdown passes, all of them to Worthy and Gray, but completed 23 of 33 for 196 yards, was intercepted twice and was sacked twice. Kansas City finished with 259 total yards, its lowest of the season, and had not allowed 30 points in its previous 30 games.
| Chiefs | Bills | |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterback | Patrick Mahomes | Josh Allen |
| Completions-attempts | 23-33 | 27-40 |
| Passing yards | 196 | 262 |
| Touchdowns-interceptions | 3-2 | 1-1 |
| Times sacked | 2 | 0 |
| Top receiver | Xavier Worthy, 4 for 61 | Khalil Shakir, 8 for 70 |
| Top rusher | Kareem Hunt, 14 for 60 | Josh Allen, 12 for 55 |
| Total yards | 259 | 366 |
| Third downs | 5 of 10 | 9 of 15 |
What they said
McDermott would not call it a statement. “No statement,” he said. “This is not the finish line.” Mahomes said, “That’s a good football team. Nothing to hang your head on losing to them. We feel like we can play better. So we’ll get back to work and try to use this as a spark so we can be a better football team in the end.”
Andy Reid was asked the next day about the end of the unbeaten season. “I don’t really care about all that crap,” he said. “I just try to go forward.”
What it meant, and what came next
The win was Buffalo’s sixth in a row and its fourth straight regular-season win over Kansas City, and it put the Bills at 9-2 for the first time since 1992 and 5-0 at home for the first time since 1995. The crowd of 71,112 was the first over 71,000 there since 2008. Allen’s run was the 58th rushing touchdown of his career, moving him past O.J. Simpson into second on the Bills’ list, seven behind Thurman Thomas.
It did not change January. Kansas City finished 15-2 and took the AFC’s top seed, and the teams met again in the AFC Championship Game in Kansas City, where the Chiefs won 32-29, their fourth playoff win over Allen’s Bills in five seasons. The Chiefs then lost Super Bowl LIX to Philadelphia, 40-22. Allen was named the league’s MVP for the 2024 season.
It was not the first time a November loss ended a 9-0 Chiefs start. In 2013, Peyton Manning’s Broncos did it on the same date, November 17.
Thanksgiving night in Buffalo
Two years later, the setting and some of the names have changed. The Bills moved into the new Highmark Stadium this season and opened it with a 41-31 win over Detroit in which Allen scored five touchdowns. McDermott is gone; Joe Brady, the Bills’ offensive coordinator in that 2024 game, is now the head coach. Reid and Mahomes are still in Kansas City.
Both teams play at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday (8 p.m. Cairo): Buffalo, 7-1 and first in the AFC East, at the Jets, and Kansas City, 6-2, at Atlanta without Kenneth Walker III. The rest of the holiday schedule is in our Thanksgiving week guide, and the seeding race is in the latest playoff picture.
The scoring plays, clock times, drive details and player numbers above come from the official play-by-play and game data. The quotes are from postgame comments and remarks the following day.
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