Super Bowl-winning coach gives Bills’ Josh Allen advice on beating Chiefs in NFL playoffs: ‘Stay in your zone’

Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills are prepared to meet Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs for the fourth time. The Bills don’t have problems beating the Chiefs in the regular season, but have never beaten Kansas City in the postseason — including last season in Buffalo. 

This season may be the Bills’ best chance to beat the Chiefs, even with the game in Kansas City. Allen has been playing the best football of his career, and Bill Cowher — “The NFL Today” analyst and Super Bowl champion head coach — said the Bills quarterback shouldn’t change a thing. 

“The biggest thing is not to fight the temptation to try to think about what you’re doing in regards to the other quarterback,” Cowher told CBS Sports regarding Allen. “This is your team, stay in your zone.”

Allen was a second team All-Pro this season, completing 63.6% of his passes for 3,731 yards with 28 touchdowns to just six interceptions for a 101.4 passer rating. The passing yards per game are down from 253.3 in 2023 to 219.5 in 2024, but the turnovers are down from 22 in 2023 to eight in 2024. 

Allen had 40 touchdowns (28 passing, 12 rushing) to just eight turnovers in 2024. 

“He’s not turning the football over. He’s not taking sacks. He’s making great decisions on the field and when he needs to take over a  game, he’s doing it at the right times and he’s doing it in a very smart way,” Cowher said. “So his leadership has been above and beyond everything.”

If the Bills play their brand of football that got them to the AFC Championship game, the rest will take care of itself. This all starts with Allen, who has a 113.1 passer rating and four touchdowns in the playoffs — and no turnovers. 

“They all kind of feed off of that. Just everyone [on the Bills offense] needs to do [their] job, trust what [they’re] doing, and they continue to do that, they’ll continue to find ways,” Cowher said. “It may not be pretty all the time, but that’s what Kansas City does. They don’t beat themselves. This Buffalo team is pretty much the same way.”