Getty Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs celebrate an improbable playoff victory over the Buffalo Bills.
Flashback to January 23, 2022: the Kansas City Chiefs just defeated the Buffalo Bills in an absolute stunner and sent the AFC rival home early for the second-straight season.
The playoff loss likely still haunts many players and fans, but one NFL veteran was ready to clear the air on his part in the heartbreaker. During a candid one-on-one interview with Ariel Helwani, former benched offensive guard Jon Feliciano told all, and a lot of what he had to say bashed his old organization.
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Feliciano: Bills Could Have ‘Potentially’ Pulled Away if He Had Played
Around the 19-minute mark, the topic shifted to Feliciano’s final game with Buffalo and Bills supporters lost it on social media after Feliciano spoke his mind to Helwani. He voiced:
To be honest, I was like [chuckles]… I mean I was definitely sad for my teammates. I did what I can on the sideline, I was coaching up people. Everytime [Gabriel Davis] scored I was on his hip, I was like — ‘I’m there for you.’ But I can’t lie if there’s a part of me that wasn’t like — ‘oh, y’all got what you deserved’ — because I feel like I would have been.. Honestly, when you look back at that game there wasn’t.. it was like they were playing football and there was no.. everyone was just going through the motions. There wasn’t anyone challenging in the face of KC’s defense [and] there was no attitude out there, and I feel like that’s what I bring. I feel like potentially, if there was that it would’ve been a close game. But who knows, I might be wrong.
Feliciano also admitted that he wasn’t happy about the way things ended in Buffalo. The veteran blocker was benched after his return from a COVID-19 hospitalization, before his eventual release this spring.
He quickly followed ex-offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to the New York Giants and told Helwani that he believes he might still be starting in Buffalo if he hadn’t gotten COVID last season.
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I’m Sorry, Can You Repeat That?
The interview definitely displayed some bitterness and those quotes reinforce it. “Y’all got what you deserved… Everyone was just going through the motions… There was no attitude out there.”
If Feliciano wants to remain friends with former teammates like Josh Allen and company, he may want to issue a formal retraction. Whether you remember it as the “13-second game” or the “grim reaper game,” that Chiefs-Bills outing was one for the ages.
Both teams showed heart, fight and grit. It’s hard to say if Feliciano’s presence would have changed the result but considering he was benched, one could argue Buffalo doesn’t score all those touchdowns with him on the field.
I mean, this was a 36-point loss, not a shutout where the offense went out with a whimper. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs may have come out on top, but no one doubted the legitimacy of Allen and the Bills’ offense after the dust settled on that overtime thriller.
If anyone is to blame, it’s Buffalo’s top-ranked defense for giving up a field goal with 13 seconds on the clock, followed by a walk-off touchdown. Feliciano does have two things in common with the Bills’ starters though, neither touched the field in overtime and they both lost.
Outside of that, there’s not much to talk about, but we’ll gladly listen as he spills all the tea!
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