Thirteen seconds. If you are a Bills fan you do not need the date. January 2022, a divisional game in Kansas City, my team ahead with thirteen seconds left, and the Chiefs needed only two plays to get into range, tied it, and won it in overtime. It is the worst January memory I own, and the Chiefs handed it to me with the same calm they handed everyone else theirs for years.

A decade of owning the AFC

The Patrick Mahomes Chiefs turned January into their own private month. Years of AFC Championship Games, a stack of Super Bowl trips, comebacks that felt scripted, and a habit of ending the seasons of every contender in the conference, mine very much included. For most of the last decade the road to the Super Bowl ran through Kansas City, and the toll was steep.

The fall

Then it stopped. After losing Super Bowl LIX to the Eagles, the Chiefs missed the playoffs entirely this past season, the first January without them since 2018. The team that ended everyone else’s winters spent this one at home. I will not pretend I shed a tear.

A dynasty’s worth of January dominance, the play that still wakes me up, and a sudden, jarring absence. Chiefs fans, you lived the run the rest of us only feared, and you set the standard for a decade. This quiet winter is new to you. From the outside, I confess, it was a strange relief to watch January happen without you in it.