Bills at Chiefs: Can Von Miller & New Buffalo Defense Stop Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City Rematch?

The Buffalo Bills bolstered their defense after taunts of "13 seconds" haunted them all offseason. They'll find out if it was worth on Sunday late afternoon.

The Buffalo Bills have waited nine months to make up for 13 seconds, their revenge plan's mandated staging coming on Sunday late afternoon (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS). 

While the Bills (4-1) will undoubtedly remain in the NFL's metaphorical penthouse of championship contenders win or lose, defeating the hosting Kansas City Chiefs would undoubtedly serve as the next level up for a team that has seen its season end at Arrowhead Stadium in each of the past two years. 

Western New York supporters need little reminder of the significance 13 seconds has on their franchise until further notice, the time removed from the Divisional playoff clock when the Chiefs undid Josh Allen/Gabriel Davis magic to set up a 42-36 overtime victory. One year prior, the Bills were merely the Chiefs' final hurdle to AFC supremacy, serving as their conference title game victim in 2020-21. 

To that end, Buffalo did what anyone who has to face the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs in an adversarial fashion for the next decade-plus: shore up the defense.

As a team, the Bills have mostly gotten over the loss from a mental standpoint, but no one will be convinced that the demons are fully exorcised until they get the best of Kansas City (4-1). A matchup defined by the aerial antics of Allen and Mahomes may instead come down to the differences from last year's group, players like Von Miller and Kaiir Elam, newcomers to a rivalry that will never be able to truly ignite until the Bills steal a matchup.

Miller was perhaps a natural fit for the Kansas City problem: partly fostered by a decade of a different kind of divisional competition ... service with AFC West's Denver Broncos ... Miller is a self-professed "Chiefs hater" and was thus displeased when the Bills were unable to close.

Now, he's playing an active role in the solution.

"I wanted the Bills to win. I was in the division so I’m just naturally a hater ... I’m not afraid to say it. I’m just naturally a hater," Miller, the first-year Bill, said this week. "I wanted them to lose but they pulled it off.

“Whenever they’re getting ready to put Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen in the Hall of Fame, that game, and of course, games throughout these upcoming years, will be the games they talked about. It’s just an honor and a privilege to be a part of it on the Bills' side this time.”

Miller might have to take things a little personally: despite frequent get-togethers with Mahomes and Co., he hasn't been part of a winning effort against the Chiefs since September 2015.

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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