A loogie into the wind

 The football gods are screaming at me.

Right now they're sitting up there in their well-appointed God Cave, yelling like fiends, baying at me like a bluetick hound. Chips and salsa and the bones of dead chicken wings are raining down on my head. They're even throwing the blue cheese.

And what have I done to deserve this?

I've convinced myself the Buffalo Bills are going to win today.

I've convinced myself to pick against Patrick Mahomes, which experience and savvy and logic says you never do -- especially not in Arrowhead, and certainly not in the playoffs.

"Foolish human!" the football gods howl, chucking another gnawed wing at me.

Well, yes. I am. 

I am, because I know every time it's Mahomes and the Chiefs on their playoff menu, the Bills fold like laundry. OK, so maybe not fold, exactly, but somehow lose even when they play really, really well.

All-time, they're 2-4 against the Chiefs in the playoffs. Against Mahomes, they're 0-3, with all three losses coming in the last four years. 

In 2021, Mahomes and the Chiefs beat them 38-24 in the AFC championship game. In 2022, the Bills lost 42-36 in the divisional round. And last year -- this time in Buffalo -- the Chiefs won 27-24, again in the divisional round.

They can't beat 'em, these Bills. They just can't.

And yet ...

And yet, I have this weird feeling that somehow it's going to be different this time.

Maybe it's because Josh Allen is having an MVP season, a Superman season, while Mahomes has struggled behind an O-line that's occasionally been the Seven Blocks of Grated Parmesan. Maybe it's because Allen and the Bills are too good to lose to the Chiefs every single time when it's counted. And maybe it's because they beat Mahomes and Co. 30-21 back in November.

Of course, that was in Buffalo.

And this is in Arrowhead.

And everyone KNOWS the NFL has paid off the refs to make sure not a glove is laid on dear Patrick, and also to make sure the Chiefs get to the Super Bowl again because the storyline -- the Chiefs are going for the first three-peat in Roman Numeral history -- is just too juicy not to have happen.

Me?

I rarely if ever buy the paying-off-the-refs thing, and I'm not buying it this time. I don't believe the refs beat the Texans last week in Arrowhead; I believe the Texans did by letting Travis Kelce run wild and free through their secondary like a gazelle bounding across the savannah. I believe there are too many variables in any game to make it likely a game turns on a couple of lousy/favorable/outrageously biased calls.

All of which I think happens these days in the NFL. Game officials are human, after all. They're also, let's face it, just plain godawful at times.

But I never saw an NFL zebra arrive at a game in a Gulfstream 5 wearing half-a-mill on his wrist. So if they're being bought off, whoever's doing it is getting them for cheap.

Anyway ...

Anyway, I think the Bills get it done tonight. I know, it's a big honkin' loogie into the wind. But I'm a firm believer that when it's a guy's time it's his time, and this sure looks like Josh Allen's time to me.

As for the other game, I'm picking Washington over Philly for the same reason. Also because getting to the Super Bowl would rub salt in sleazy former owner Daniel Snyder's wounds, and I'm not a good enough Christian not to root for that.

Ouch. Man, those chicken bones hurt.