Arrowhead Pride
Playing Buffalo, Kansas City must contain one of the NFL’s most dangerous quarterbacks.
As the Kansas City Chiefs prepare for their high-stakes matchup against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, linebacker Drue Tranquill said he expects an intense game in one of the NFL’s toughest environments.
“It’s a tough place,” he recalled of the hostile atmosphere during last season’s playoffs. “It’s a football town. I’ll never forget riding in on the buses — the hostility, it felt like. But I mean, that’s what you live for in the NFL: you live for those environments.”
Having played each other seven times since Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen have been their quarterbacks, both teams know what to expect of the other squad.
“I think when you play a team in the regular season [and] in the playoffs [the] number of times that the Chiefs have played them over the past five years, it becomes a little bit of a rivalry,” said Tranquill. “We know these guys, they know [us]. Who can execute the best is what it’s going to come down to on Sunday.”
Tranquil acknowledged that Allen’s ability to make plays both in the air and on the ground will be a key factor.
“He’s a great athlete,” said the linebacker. “We obviously know [he’s] a big, strong guy; [he] can shake tacklers off. [He] has a great stiff-arm [and] has good movement outside the pocket.
“It’ll be all hands on deck.”
But tranquill also knows that defensive lineman Chris Jones will be a handful for Buffalo, too. Now in his second season with Kansas City, he recognizes that Jones’ impact on the defense is immeasurable.
“Anybody who is really involved in the game of football — and watches it — knows that numbers can lie,” Tranquill said of Jones, who has just three sacks this season. “He’s the best one-on-one pass rusher in football.”
Tranquil said that the attention Jones commands from offensive lines is “disruptive” to their plans.
“He’s getting four or six hands on him — it seems like — every single play,” explained the linebacker. “And because of that, our defense finds success. We’re able to exploit offenses in different ways.
“Certainly our defense goes through him. When he’s playing his best ball, we’re playing our best ball. We’re going to need him on Sunday.”
