Kansas City-Buffalo, the movable feast of NFL playoff rivalries, will take center stage again Sunday.

The Chiefs and Bills will play in the postseason for the fourth time in five seasons in the AFC championship in Kansas City. No other teams have met as often this decade. None has been as frustrated as the Bills.

The teams have split their eight games in the 2020s, with one defining difference — the Bills have won the last four in the regular-season and the Chiefs have won all three in the playoffs.

The two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs’ chance for an historic Super Bowl three-peat hinges on a playoff four-peat over the Bills as they look to avenge a regular-season loss.

Since perennial MVP contenders Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen first met in 2020, the match has featured multi-tasking quarterbacks, head coaches who have risen to the head of their class, and fan bases that consider freezing temperatures just another excuse to go shirtless.

And tight finishes. Excruciatingly tight finishes.

“You always remember the feeling of not pulling through,” Buffalo quarterback Allen said this week. “It sticks with you for awhile. It really doesn’t leave. We’re grateful to have another opportunity at it. It’s another week we get to play.”

The Bills know they can win. They have done it several times before. They have won the last three regular-season games at Arrowhead Stadium, and they handed the Chiefs their first loss this season when Allen turned a fourth-down gamble into a 26-yard touchdown scramble with 2:17 remaining for the decisive score in a 30-21 victory at Orchard Park on Nov. 17.

“No statement,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said after that. “This is not the finish line.”

For one team, this will be the finish line.

Something seems to shift in the playoffs, although the Chiefs’ dominance should be considered relative.

“You look at the games … every game is close,” Kansas City quarterback Mahomes said this week. “It just comes down to a play here or there that usually makes an impact on the outcome.

“They have great players at every level, both sides of the ball. They are well-coached. When you play great football teams like that, it kind of ends with that split there.”

The teams last met with the Super Bowl on the line in the AFC title game following the 2020 regular season, when the Chiefs rolled to 38-24 victory. The other two playoff meetings, both in the division round, have gone down to the wire.

Past the wire, in the one game that will forever haunt the Bills Mafia.

The recent playoff matchups:

2020 AFC Championship Game

Arrowhead Stadium, Jan. 24, 2021

Final: Chiefs 38, Bills 24

Pointspread: Chiefs -3

Mahomes passed for 325 yards passing and three touchdowns and the Chiefs outscored the Bills 38-6 from the second quarter until midway through the fourth to reach the Super Bowl. Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce had 13 catches for 118 yards and two touchdowns.

Allen was terrific, accounting for 375 yards in total offense with two touchdown passes, but his lone interception deep in Chiefs’ territory early in the fourth quarter led to the Mahomes’ second scoring pass to Kelce for a 38-16 lead with 7:36 left.

Because of COVID restrictions, the crowd was only 16,993.

2021 AFC Division Game

Arrowhead Stadium, Jan. 23, 2002

Final: Chiefs 42, Bills 36, overtime

Pointspread: Chiefs -1 1/2

The Kansas City victory was one the most improbable in NFL playoff history. For fantastic finishes, only the Music City Miracle — the cross-field pass play that the Tennessee Titans used to beat Buffalo 22-16 as time expired in 2000 playoffs — is close. The Bills’ double-whammy.

It might have appeared as if the Chiefs were in trouble after Allen’s 19-yard touchdown pass to Gabriel Davis — his fourth score of the game — gave the Bills a 36-33 led with 13 seconds remaining.

After the ensuing kickoff, the Chiefs had the ball on their 25-yard line with those 13 seconds and three timeouts remaining, about 45 yards from legitimate field goal range. Enter Mahomes.

“When it’s grim, be the grim reaper,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid told Mahomes.

After two Mahomes completions, including a seemingly inexplicable 25-yard pass to wide open Kelce in the middle of the field, Harrison Butker made a game-tying 49-yard field goal as time expired.

The Chiefs won the overtime coin toss, and Mahomes did the rest, finishing a 75-yard drive with an 8-yard touchdown pass to Kelce in the only overtime possession. The Bills never got the ball because of overtime rules that since have been altered to allow each teams at least one possession.

“It stings,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It stings.”

2023 AFC Division Game

Highmark Stadium, Jan. 27, 2024

Final: Chiefs 27, Bills 24

Pointspread: Bills -2 1/2

Mahomes threw two touchdown passes to old friend and Bills’ nemesis Kelce as the Chiefs won their first true road playoff game in the Mahomes Era. Kelce has 26 catches for 289 yards and five touchdowns in three playoff games against the Bills.

Allen had 260 yards total offense and three touchdowns, two rushing, and led the Bills on a 16-play drive that reached the Chiefs’ 26-yard line before he was forced out of the pocket on third-and-nine and threw an incomplete pass. Tyler Bass missed a 44-yard field goal with 1:47 remaining that would have tied the game. Buffalo never got the ball back.

“All-time classic again,” Reid said.

Chiefs in seventh straight AFC title game

The Chiefs are playing in their seventh consecutive AFC championship game, one short of the league record set by New England from 2011-18. With a victory, they would make the Super Bowl for the fifth time in six seasons after winning in 2019 and losing in 2020.

The Bills won back-to-back American Football League titles in 1962-63 and are looking for their first Super Bowl appearance since 1993, the last of their fourth straight championship losses.

“Obviously Patrick is one of the greatest to ever play the game,” Allen said. “They control the ball extremely well. They don’t make bad decisions. Going for a three-peat, and that’s what everybody wants in this league, to have the sustained success that they have had. They play great situational football. They understand when it is time to go.

“They know who we are. We know who they are. It literally comes down to who executes well on Sunday.”