Josh Allen, Bills fall just short again in another close playoff battle vs. Chiefs

The Buffalo Bills ought to be getting used to this by now.

It surely doesn't make it any easier.

Despite another gutsy effort from Josh Allen and his bunch, who took the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs down to the wire in the playoffs yet again, they were forced to watch in the closing seconds as Patrick Mahomes and the rest of their biggest rivals ran off the final seconds in a 32-29 victory in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday night.

For the fourth time in the last five seasons, the Chiefs had ended their postseason run.

"To be the champs," Allen said after emerging from the locker room, "you have to beat the champs."

The Chiefs will head to New Orleans and try to become the first team in NFL history to win three consecutive Super Bowls, while the Bills head back to Buffalo, where they will rue another missed chance at their first trip to the big game since January 1994.

"They played as a team," Bills coach Sean McDermott said. "They gave everything they had."

It just wasn't enough. Again.

[Read more: Where do Josh Allen, Bills go from here after another devastating loss to Chiefs? ]

Allen did about everything he could, moving the Bills downfield in the second half, trying to answer every Kansas City score with one of his own. He finished with 237 yards passing and two touchdowns without an interception, and his touchdown throw to Curtis Samuel with 3:59 left in the game knotted it 29-all and gave Buffalo a fighting chance.

But the Bills' defense, which was missing Taylor Rapp and Christian Benford on the back end due to injuries, was unable to make a play when it mattered, and Mahomes marched K.C. within range of Harrison Butker's go-ahead field goal.

Even then, the Bills had an