Bills vs. Chiefs and Legendary NFL Playoff Roadblocks

Losing in the playoffs is never fun. But really, it had to be them?

If this year’s postseason feels somewhat familiar, there’s a reason for that. There have been 39 instances in NFL history of one team having at least a three-game postseason win streak over an opponent – not necessarily in consecutive years, but three wins in consecutive matchups. And four of them happened this season.

• In the Wild-Card Round, the Buccaneers beat the Eagles for the third straight time, a streak which stretches back to the 2002 NFC Championship.
• The Packers marched into Dallas and beat the Cowboys for the third time in just over a decade, having won after 2014, 2016 and now 2023.
• The Packers then got a taste of their own medicine in the Divisional Round, falling to the 49ers for a record-tying fifth straight time.
• And, of course, the Bills once again crashed into their almost yearly attempt at conquering the Chiefs, only to fall short in heartbreaking fashion yet again.

It’s hard to even call these rivalries at this point. A rivalry implies a certain level of equality – a matchup between two peers, back-and-forth, with both sides winning their fair share of battles. But when one team starts winning over and over and over again, it becomes something else. The amount of importance and meaning to the games becomes lopsided. For the Bills and Packers, the day the 49ers or Chiefs come to town was the most important day of their season. To the Chiefs and 49ers, it was Tuesday.

They’re not rivalry games. They’re more tests of skill that it feels like Buffalo or Green Bay is going to have to figure out how to overcome – the bullies you beat in Act III; the annoying subboss who pops back up again in the penultimate level. They’re roadblock games.

And having this many roadblock games in one year feels strange, doesn’t it? If there are only 39 instances of this ever, having four of them all happening in the same season seems like it would be a historical oddity. And, in addition, it’s the kind of stat that feels like it should be a relic of a time long past, when there were only eight teams in the league and only four of them were any good. This sounds like a “George Halas beats up on Steve Owen” stat, or something buried in the legend of Vince Lombardi. In a world where nearly half the league makes the playoffs, we shouldn’t be getting the same matchups year after year. And in a world of parity, with salary caps and player movement, it should be less common for one team to crash and burn into another one season after season, right?

Well, yes and no. Four games in one postseason is the all-time record, but 2023 merely ties with … 2022. Last year, we had the Cowboys beating the Buccaneers, the 49ers beating the Cowboys, the Bengals beating the Bills and the Eagles beating the Giants, all for the third consecutive playoff matchup. Some of those stretch longer than others – you have to go all the way back to 1981 to find the first Bengals-Bills playoff matchup – but still, it’s four instances of three playoff wins in a row. In fact, of the 51 times a team has beaten another for the third, fourth or even fifth consecutive postseason matchup, 20 of them have happened in the past decade, and only nine pre-date the 1990 expansion to 12-team playoffs. More wild-card teams mean we get more chances to have these matchups; it increases the odds that a lesser team keeps doing enough to make the playoffs and get wiped out by a dynasty; and it means more chances to face a team while they’re really good, before their stars age out.

The Packers and Bills aren’t just your average roadblocked teams. Both of them are setting some pretty impressive futility marks as they keep smashing their heads into their rivals.

For the Packers, this was their fifth straight loss to the 49ers, stretching back to the 2012 Divisional Round. That ties an NFL record, and frankly, Green Bay has done it in a more impressive fashion. The only other franchise to lose five straight playoff games to the same opponent was the Colts, who lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1975, 1976, 1995, 1996 and 2005. Losing to the same franchise five times in a 31-year period is more trivia than an actual, factual streak. That streak includes three different head coaches, three different starting quarterbacks, and two cities. The only thing the 1975 Baltimore Colts had in common with the 2005 Indianapolis Colts were a logo and a color scheme. There aren’t that many people whose fandom snuck out with Bob Irsay in the middle of the night in 1984; the Steelers essentially victimized two entirely different groups of people. 

Not so much with Green Bay, though. Colin Kaepernick’s unstoppable day on the ground, Phil Dawson’s kick as time expired; Raheem Mostert gashing through Mike Pettine’s defense, the special teams miscues in the snow, Dre Greenlaw’s two interceptions – all of it happened in a 12-year period. Only 18 other teams have even managed to lose three roadblock games in a dozen years; this is an unprecedented stretch of futility. It’s hard not to feel bad for Packers fans who have had to watch their team come up short time and time again.

Then again, the average Green Bay DVOA in those five seasons was just 9.5%, which is well on the low end for roadblocked teams. San Francisco’s average DVOA was 27.5%, and they were the better team in all five matchups. The Packers are unlucky to have lost all five – they had a Post-Game Win Expectancy of 43.5% against the 49ers this year. They’re also unlucky to have played San Francisco five times in the past dozen years in the playoffs. But it’s hard to argue that they are particularly deserving of getting much further than they actually have.

For that, you have to go to the Buffalo Bills. Here are the highest average DVOAs for roadblocked teams (with estimated DVOA before 1981):

You can see there why it’s hard for 49ers fans to have too much sympathy for Packers fans in this long losing streak; this is just karma for ruining the late 1990s year after year after year. Then again, it’s hard to find to many people outside the Bay Area who think that that what that era of the 49ers really needed was another title, having just won a Super Bowl and with four more in the recent past. Besides, the 49ers have done more than their fair share of ruining other teams’ hopes and dreams over the years. In addition to the longest-ever win streak over the Packers and their revenge over the Cowboys after getting knocked out of consecutive NFC Championship games, the 49ers also have win streaks over the Vikings and Bears in their history. There’s not a ton of sympathy out there for San Francisco playoff struggles, and while a decade or so in the wilderness has paid off at least some of those dynasty-era dues, it’s not enough to get sympathy to the Montanas and Youngs of the world.

The Bills, though? Unless you live in Kansas City or are a huge Swiftie, you have to start feeling bad for them at this point. By DVOA, Buffalo has been the better team in each of their three playoff matchups against Kansas City, and yet here they are, once again, having to watch Patrick Mahomes celebrating in front of them and moving on. There’s no shame in losing to a Mahomes offense, even one with no receivers, but there’s no shame in losing to Josh Allen, either! And the fact that Buffalo has won their last three regular-season games against Kansas City doesn’t help; if anything, it makes it so much worse. Wins in October are soon forgotten; losses in January bury themselves in a team’s psyche.

The only thing we can say in consolation to Bills fans is that sometimes, it does get better. Things are only impossible until they are done; roadblocks can eventually be demolished. The 1993 49ers broke their losing streak against the Giants with a 44-3 rout, retiring both Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms in the process. The 1978 Rams finally got the Vikings monkey off their back in a 34-10 win that saw them shut down Fran Tarkenton. The 2015 Broncos dodged the Colts entirely and won the Super Bowl. It can happen to you, too!

Just, uh, don’t look too closely at your salary cap situation going forward, is all we ask.