Poor Josh Allen, man.

For the fourth time in five years, Allen and the Buffalo Bills have fallen in the playoffs at the hands of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s a brutal pill to swallow, and will likely have long-lasting impacts on all the players involved. How this team bounces back from it over the offseason will be a long process worth documenting, and there’s plenty of work to do.

Following the narrow 32-29 loss, Allen spoke with the media, in as somber a state as I’ve ever seen him.

“It’s not fun,” Allen muttered, clearly distraught. “To be the champs you’ve got to beat the champs, and we didn’t do it tonight.

I simply will not let the “Allen can’t get past the Chiefs” narrative take shape this offseason, and you will absolutely not hear me say it once. The Bills can’t get past the Chiefs, but it’s not on Allen.

In his four playoff games against the Chiefs, Allen has 1,306 total yards, 11 total touchdowns, and only one interception. The Bills have averaged 28 points in those four meetings.

The Bills have surrendered 38, 42, 27, and 32 points in those four meetings, and flukey stuff from the football gods have consistently gone Mahomes’ way. What about the last time these two teams met in the AFC Championship Game? Allen did what he had to do and the defense caved to allow the Chiefs to drive the field in only 13 seconds. What about the officiating in this game, where a handful of plays all broke the Chiefs’ way? The defense, the coaching, dropped passes when it matters most — Allen continues to be let down by the people around him.

This was another brutal way for the Bills season to come to a close, and Buffalo will enter a crucial offseason where they simply have to answer the question “how do we get past the Chiefs?”