AFC Championship Game 2021: Chiefs Vs. Bills Schedule, Bracket, Odds, Betting Line, Picks

The 2021 AFC Championship Game will be contested tonight when the Buffalo Bills visit Arrowhead Stadium to take on the Kansas City Chiefs. The top-seeded Chiefs will be looking to make their second Super Bowl appearance in a row with a victory, while the No. 2 Bills are trying to get back to the big game for the first time since 1994, the last of four consecutive fruitless Super Bowl appearances for the organization.

Each squad is led by a talented young quarterback representing the league’s next generation of signal-callers, with reigning Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes already reaching legend status in Kansas City and Josh Allen appears not far behind from doing the same in Buffalo. The winner’s team will go on to face one of the NFL’s all-time greats at the position in Super Bowl LV two weeks from now, squaring off with either Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers after they clash in the NFC Championship Game this afternoon. It is setting up to be a thrilling day of football, so get ready by checking out everything you need to know to watch the Bills at Chiefs tonight, including the schedule, viewing guide, updated odds and more below.

How To Watch The 2021 NFC Championship Game

Date: Sunday, Jan. 24 | Start Time: 6:40 p.m. ET | TV: CBS | Live Stream: CBS All Access | Location: Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO

2021 NFL Playoff Bracket

The NFL tweeted out the full NFL Playoff Bracket after the dust settled in the Divisional Round:

NFC Championship Game 2021 Odds

Spread: KC -3.5 | Total: over-under 54.5 points | Moneyline: KC -180, BUF +160

Chiefs Vs. Bills Preview And Prediction

Bookmakers believe the Chiefs have an edge in the AFC Championship Game 2021, although it is not as large as one might expect given Kansas City went on the road three months ago and beat Buffalo by a nine-point margin, easily covering the 5.5-point spread. The Bills opened as a one-point underdog this time around, but bettors hammered the Chiefs early and forced shops to move that line up to KC -3.5. There has been a good amount of buyback on the Bills as of Saturday evening, with 53% of tickets and 55% of the handle taking the visitors with the points, so the odds could swing back in Buffalo’s direction as the game’s 6:40 p.m. ET kickoff draws closer. The Chiefs have not had many issues winning or covering against this opponent in recent years, with their Week 6 straight-up and against the spread victory serving as their fourth in five tries dating back to the start of the 2013 campaign.

One reason that the line began tilting more towards Kansas City after going up on the board close to a pick ‘em was a series of positive status updates on the health of Patrick Mahomes. The signal-caller suffered a head injury in the third quarter of last week’s game against Cleveland, getting sidelined for the remainder of that contest after taking a shot from linebacker Mack Wilson. Mahomes ultimately cleared the concussion protocol and will be ready to play today after a trio of limited practices leading up to the AFC Championship Game. The 25-year-old had completed 21 of 30 passes for 255 yards and a touchdown, plus picked up 14 yards and another score on the ground, before exiting the Divisional Round despite dealing with a toe injury that is still listed on the injury report.

Ian Rapoport reported the latest news on several key Chiefs offensive players, including running backs Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Le’Veon Bell:

Although the Chiefs have a strong historical track record beating the number against the Bills, they have not been a profitable team to bet on during the 2020 NFL season. Kansas City finished the campaign with a 7-9 ATS mark, a 43.8% cover percentage that was tied for the third worst in the NFL. The Chiefs have gone an impressive 7-2 straight-up at home, but covered in just three of those nine games played at Arrowhead, including an ATS loss to the Browns to open their 2021 NFL Playoff run. The Chiefs will now square off with a Bills foe that has been amongst the best in the league at cashing tickets as an underdog this year, boasting a 3-2 SU record and covering at a league-best 80% clip (4-1 ATS), with their only ATS loss as a ‘dog coming against Kansas City in Week 6.

This Bills team has been changing the franchises fortunes and reversing negative trends all year long. Buffalo won the AFC East for the first time in 25 years thanks to a spectacular 13-3 romp through the regular season, which was good for the No. 2 seed on the AFC side of the 2021 NFL Playoff bracket. The Bills went on to beat the Indianapolis Colts in the Wild Card, securing their first postseason victory since 1996 and snapping a six-game playoff losing skid that included a pair of recent first-round exits in 2017 and 2019. Now the franchise is in position to reach the Super Bowl after a 27-year hiatus, with much of the credit for this turnaround owed to the remarkable development of quarterback Josh Allen. The 2018 first-round pick has improved significantly in each of his three seasons as a pro, culminating in his first All-Pro and Pro Bowl selections in 2020. Allen racked up 4,544 yards passing on a 69.2% completion rate while tossing 37 touchdowns against 10 interceptions. He was also a force on the ground, taking off 102 times for 421 yards and eight touchdowns, the third consecutive season in which he scored at least eight rushing TDs.

The impact of wideout Stefon Diggs—who the organization acquired in the offseason via trade with the Minnesota Vikings—cannot be understated, as the receiver led the NFL with 127 catches and 1,535 yards to go along with eight scores during the regular season. The Allen-Diggs battery continued their remarkable chemistry in the playoffs, piling up 14 receptions for 234 yards and a pair of touchdowns in two games to help reach the AFC Championship. Diggs made NFL history by becoming the first wide receiver ever to record 17 games with six or more catches in a single season and will clearly continue be a massive part of Buffalo’s plans in the AFC Championship. Not coincidentally, Diggs wasn’t a major factor back in Week 6, an outing in which he had six catches and 46 yards—some of the wideout’s lowest marks of the year—and Allen claimed responsibility for these failures against Kansas City, citing poor reads and inaccurate throws. The quarterback believes both sides have improved in the months since and says it will be a “dogfight” at Arrowhead tonight (via Syracuse.com):

“They showed a couple different things on defense, stuff we weren’t expecting. I think we’ve gotten a lot better since that game -they’d probably say the same thing. So it’s good teams that are going to go out there and compete, and it’s going to be a four-quarter dogfight. We have to do everything in our power to not make dumb mistakes and put the ball where it needs to be if they play zone. And if they play man we have to win our matchups outside, and get our run game established and play really good complimentary football”

Buffalo is arguably the hottest team remaining on the 2021 NFL Playoff bracket, coming into the AFC Championship Game having won eight consecutive games. Perhaps more impressively, the Bills won by a double-digit margin and covered the spread in all but one of those contests, which was a hard-fought 27-24 victory over a feisty Colts team in the Wild Card round. While the Chiefs have not lost a meaningful game since early October—the team did lose in Week 17 while the starters were resting with the conference’s No. 1 seed in hand—they have hardly been winning in a convincing fashion. Kansas City set an NFL record by coming out ahead by one score or less in seven consecutive matchups between Week 9 and Week 16 and barely survived a scare in the Divisional Round after slipping past the Browns—who opened as a double-digit underdog—by a narrow, 22-17 margin. Even if the Chiefs do end up advancing to Super Bowl LV, this recent history shows they may struggle to cover the 3.5-point spread in the process.

The AFC Championship Game total has also shifted rather significantly after going up on the board with an over-under of 51.5 points, with oddsmakers raising it up to 54.5 points following an initial wave of over money. That surge tempered a bit once the line hit its current mark, with the under now drawing a majority portion of the action based on 52% of all bets and 53% of money on that side of the total. It is worth noting that the total went way under when these teams last met in October—falling 12 points short of the 55-point line set on the Week 6 contest—making it the fourth time in the last five head-to-head meetings between the Chiefs and Bills that the final score failed to eclipse the total. Buffalo’s high-powered offense, which averaged the second-most points and yardage in the league this year, has helped a majority of contests the club has been involved with land over the total. The Bills have a 64.7% over rate (11-6-1 over) in 18 games, while the Chiefs have a slight lean towards the under with 52.9% (8-9-0 over) of their 17 contests going below the total despite an offense that led the league in yards per game and scored more points on average than all but five teams.

Pro handicapper Jon Price of SportsInformationTraders.com is leaning towards the underdog Bills to not only cover, but also outright win the 2021 AFC Championship Game. The Vegas expert says that Buffalo is more battle-tested and prepared to face the defending champs this time around, hungry for revenge after faltering at home against this same opponent earlier in the 2020 NFL season. The Chiefs are plenty talented, but have struggled to turn it on the way they did during last year’s title run. Mahomes was clearly not 100% while dealing with a toe injury prior to suffering the head injury that knocked him out of last week’s contest and is still listed on the injury report with both ailments, issues that may end up costing Kansas City a second straight appearance in the Super Bowl. The Bills seemed to have figured out a championship formula—one with Allen leading a high-powered, aerial-focused offense to go with an opportunistic defense, one that recorded 26 takeaways this year, making big plays when they matter most—that is translating directly to postseason success. The team has already picked up back-to-back wins to reach this portion of the NFL Playoff bracket and is poised to make it three in a row tonight to get back to the Super Bowl for the first time in nearly three decades. Don’t be surprised when Buffalo upsets the favored Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game and becomes the conference’s representative in Super Bowl LV.

Pick: Bills +3.5

Prediction: Bills 28 – Chiefs 24