‘We’ll do it again, baby’: Patrick Mahomes vs. Josh Allen — the NFL’s new Brady vs. Manning — can add to his legend

A little more than two months ago, as CBS cameras panned behind quarterback Josh Allen following the Buffalo Bills’ midseason victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, Allen’s nemesis, Patrick Mahomes – who is really more of an enemy – appeared over his right shoulder.

Mahomes and the Chiefs had just lost to Allen and the Bills for the fourth time in five regular-season games, giving Allen distinct bragging rights. As they approached for an embrace near midfield that November night, Mahomes smiled knowingly. He might have left another regular season game against Allen with a loss, but he also still had the edge where it mattered most: 3-0 in the playoffs; three Super Bowl rings and counting down to Allen’s zero. So it makes sense that when Mahomes saw Allen, he ended the November loss by saying the words so many football fans — and arguably every NFL executive — wanted to hear.

“We’ll do it again, baby,” Mahomes said, leaning into Allen’s ear.

It wasn’t a prediction. It was a promise.

That’s the foundation of what fuels the Chiefs vs. Bills in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game — a Mahomes vs. Allen subplot that has a chance of turning into a protracted battle of narrative importance in the timeline of 104 years of the league. It’s perhaps even to the point of being this era’s Tom Brady versus Peyton Manning, a defining rivalry between the quarterbacks that will live forever in the ever-expanding fusion of NFL history and mythology.

Bury the league. Freeze it. Leave it for the aliens to dig up in 10,000 years. Brady versus Manning will be the Achilles versus Hector of enduring NFL legends.

Of course, Mahomes versus Allen isn’t quite on the level of Brady and Manning. Not quite yet. For there to be this kind of intertwined fabric between two careers, there has to be a consequential breakthrough that changes the landscape. At some point, both the quarterbacks must lose something important at the hands of the other. So far, Allen and the Bills have only met the smallest part of the equation – taking from Mahomes and the Chiefs several times during the regular season, but giving it all back when the two face each other in the playoffs playoffs.

For Allen and the Bills, playoff losses have always been particularly crushing. First in a 2020 AFC Championship game that didn’t even seem as close as the 38-24 result. Then in the famous “13-second match in the 2021 divisional roundwhich saw the Chiefs mount a seemingly impossible late comeback before winning 42-36 in overtime. And finally, in the 2023 divisional round, which featured a consequently missed field goal in the fourth quarter by Buffalo and squandered home-court advantage in a 27-24 loss. This final defeat spawned Allen’s famously depressed “It sucks” speech after the game, marking a new low point in Buffalo’s battle to overtake the Chiefs.

This is how it can happen in these kinds of rivalries. For Manning — who will forever be considered one of the best quarterbacks in league history — the mounting pressure to finally beat Brady reached a boiling point after an 0-6 start. That included two brutal playoff losses, one of which saw Manning throw four interceptions in a 24-14 loss in the 2003 AFC Championship. In fact, it wasn’t until Manning eighth season in the NFL in 2005 that he finally inflicted a defeat on the quarterback who had become his sworn enemy. At that point, Brady had won two Super Bowls and was on track for his third later this season.

It turned out that Manning’s breakthrough was also significant. He won his next three games against Brady, culminating with his first AFC Championship Game win over Brady in the 2006 playoffs – helping Manning to his first Super Bowl victory a few weeks later. Manning would never again lose to Brady in the AFC title game, scoring two more afterward. When it was all over, Brady would hold an 11-6 career record against Manning, but a 2-3 record against him in the playoffs, with all three of Brady’s losses coming in the conference title game.

In the rearview mirror, few really remember the regular season clashes between Brady and Manning. Almost everyone who has looked back at their career remembers the five playoff battles, which represents the most quarterbacks in league history who have faced each other in the postseason. That’s more than any other iconic quarterback tandem has faced, including Brett Favre vs. Steve Young and Terry Bradshaw vs. Kenny Stabler — each of them met four times in the playoffs.

For all of these players, their quarterback counterpart has essentially become their defining path to a Super Bowl victory. More often than not, if you managed to defeat your foe in the playoffs, you were on your way to Sunday’s biggest stage.

That’s why there’s no escaping the final Super Bowl tally between guys like Brady and Manning, a total that ended 7-2 in Brady’s favor…but also featured satisfaction of the Manning family to see Peyton’s younger brother, Eli, hit. Brady and the Patriots have been eliminated in the Super Bowl twice. A pair of victories punctuated by an Eli-led Giants team that denied the Patriots a perfect 19-0 record in Super Bowl XLII. Still, even with Eli’s victories over Brady, one can’t help but wonder how many Super Bowls Peyton would have won if Brady never existed.

It’s all part of the tradition. That and the friendship and respect Brady and Manning have had for each other ever since – even meeting up during the 2009 offseason to pitch in and secretly train together for two days in a small town in Tennessee. A generation of football players who are now in their prime years in the NFL grew up on this rivalry and shared a competitive admiration. And unsurprisingly, both Mahomes and Allen were among those watching, a fact Mahomes attested to a year ago.

“I grew up watching (Brady vs. Manning) games and I remember a lot of the memories I have of them,” Mahomes told reporters before meeting Allen in last year’s divisional round. “I hope we can also participate in these big games and give memories to the kids who will come behind us.”

Certainly, this represents a long story to follow for Mahomes and Allen. But so far, only Mahomes has ensured that his own chapters of greatness will endure. Allen has not yet appeared in a Super Bowllet alone win one. He never won an MVP award or made the All Pro first team. Indeed, at this intersection of his career, Allen could become Manning against Mahomes’ Brady, winning a few here and there… or he could turn a corner on Sunday and take over the rivalry entirely… or he could continue to lose in his biggest opportunities in the playoffs and ends up being Philip Rivers of the Brady/Manning era, who put up big passing numbers and many wins, but never broke through the competitive wall to reach a Super Bowl.

In a way, all of that is on the line for Allen this week. He can turn down Mahomes’ quest to become the first quarterback in league history to win three straight Super Bowls – a feat even Brady couldn’t accomplish – and, in doing so, earn his first opportunity of Super Bowl. For this to truly be a rivalry that can reach the level of Brady vs. Manning, one could argue that an Allen win on Sunday is a must. Anything less simply makes Allen and the Bills a familiar speed bump on the road to immortality.

In a way, even the game materializing is already a victory for the NFL and the rest of us. Even fans who don’t have the Chiefs or Bills on their teams probably have a deep interest in this one. Some will look at the historic nature of what Mahomes is pursuing and want to be counted among those who saw it happen with their own eyes. Others will look at the fact that Kansas City has become a villain – the franchise and the quarterback achieving enough to become hated for that success. Not to mention the the league’s perceived conspiratorial biases that accompany it.

Still others will just want to see a big playoff spectacle with a Super Bowl appearance on the line, either because they weren’t old enough to experience the Brady vs. Manning heyday or because they want to watch again something like that. if not better. And when the outcome is settled, hopefully with an epic quarterback battle to get it done, the end result will likely leave many with Mahomes’ words to Allen ringing in their ears as they look to the 2025 season.

Do it again, baby.