Carl Peterson on Chiefs’ AFC title loss at Buffalo in 1994: ‘We owe ‘em one for Joe’

It’s been three decades since Carl Peterson took the phone call, but the conversation remains vivid in his mind.

The Chiefs were trailing the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 23, 1994 when quarterback Joe Montana took a big hit and had to be helped to the sideline. Peterson was watching from the pressbox at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, when the phone rang a short while later.

On the line was Chiefs team doctor Jon Browne, and he was delivering bad news.

“Joe’s out and he’s unfortunately going to be out for the game,” Browne told Peterson, who was the Chiefs’ general manager at the time.

Montana’s head had slammed to the artificial turf after he was hit by a trio of Bills players on the Chiefs’ first series of the second half.

Dave Krieg came in and led the Chiefs to a touchdown that cut their deficit to seven . However, Buffalo scored the game’s final 10 points and won 30-13, ending the Chiefs’ dreams of reaching the Super Bowl for the first time in nearly a quarter century.

Peterson reflected on that loss as this year’s Chiefs team prepares to return to Orchard Park for Sunday’s AFC Divisional playoff game against the Bills.

When the phone rang, Peterson had a feeling of dread before even hearing Browne’s voice.

“I knew it was not going to be good. And he sustained a concussion, had to come out and then we just fell farther and farther behind,” Peterson said. “And they ran the ball quite effectively against us in the second half.

“I’ve always contested, I’m sure it can be refuted, but if we had been able to keep Joe healthy, we’d already won a couple of playoff games for us in the last minute. He was the Patrick Mahomes of that day. You never felt you were out of the game with Joe Montana as your quarterback, even when you fell behind in the fourth quarter.”

Peterson, who was the Chiefs president and GM from 1989-2008, had good reason for believing the Chiefs could have won that day. Montana and the Chiefs rallied from fourth-quarter deficits in the previous two rounds of the playoffs before facing the Bills.

But with Montana out, Buffalo kicked a short field goal in the fourth quarter, forced Krieg and the Chiefs into a three-and-out and then put the game on the back of running back Thurman Thomas. His 3-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter put the game out of reach.

It was Thomas’ third of the day and he rushed 33 times for 186 yards on a blustery day in upstate New York.

The Chiefs, who won the AFC West title in 1993, finished the year with a 13-6 record under coach Marty Schottenheimer. Peterson wanted badly to hand the AFC Championship Trophy to the person for whom it is named: Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt.

“I think if we could’ve kept Joe healthy, we would have won it and been in the Super Bowl,” Peterson said. “It was a very fine football team with Joe and Marcus Allen and some other terrific players, offensive linemen, etc.

“Joe gave us a lot of wonderful wins, playoff victories and so on. He was definitely the guy we pinned our hopes on to get to the Super Bowl and give Lamar Hunt the trophy that bears his name, which he so well deserved. But it took a long time before that happened again for the Chiefs. And I’m really glad that they did it a few years ago and been back two or three times.”

If the Chiefs hope to get back to the Super Bowl and join a short list of repeat champions, they’ll have to win Sunday in their first postseason trip back to Buffalo in almost exactly 30 years.

A narrative on NFL broadcasts this week has been about the Bills trying to get even with the Chiefs, who have defeated Buffalo twice in the postseason since 2020.

Peterson, however, is thinking of payback for 30 years ago.

“We owe ‘em one,” Peterson said. “We owe ‘em one for Joe.”