Patrick Mahomes will put his friendship with Josh Allen to one side this weekend as he attempts to guide the Kansas City Chiefs past the Buffalo Bills in the Divisional Round of the NFL play-offs.
Mahomes and Allen get on well off the field but their mutual respect will be put to one side for the evening on Sunday as they prepare to slug it out in New Jersey.
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Mahomes said: “When you compete against your friends, you almost want to win even more because of it.
“Josh is a great dude. I respect the way he plays football and just the guy that he is. But when two guys that are ultra-competitive that are friends off the field go up against each other, we obviously both want to win.
“We see each other in the off-season, and you want to have a little bit of those bragging rights.”
The Chiefs have ended the Bills’ play-off hopes in two of the last three years but both of those wins were on home turf. A trip to Highmark Stadium is a different prospect altogether for the defending Super Bowl champions.
“The Bills are a great challenge,” Mahomes added.
“I think everybody understands that they’ve gotten my number a lot of times. We’ve been lucky enough to get them in the play-offs, but they beat us earlier this year.
“So we understand that we’re going to have to play our best football to win the game, especially at their place, but it’s not about ending someone’s season for us. It’s about just advancing, trying to find a way to survive and advance and get to the next round, and whatever that takes this weekend we’re going to try to do and try to go out there and win a football game.”
