It’s conference championship games Sunday, and four teams are still in it, trying to get a victory that will alter their franchise.

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are looking to stay on the path to a Super Bowl three-peat, something that’s never been done.

Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills are trying to finally get past the bane of their existence, Mahomes and the Chiefs.

The Philadelphia Eagles are attempting to give themselves another chance to win a Super Bowl in the Jalen Hurts era after losing to Kansas City two years ago.

And Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders, the upstarts and outliers in this quartet that is otherwise full of bluebloods, are way, way ahead of schedule and are looking to prove they do indeed belong.

Here’s how I think the games will go:

*Commanders at Eagles — 3 p.m. — NFC — Memo to Washington: Forget the timeline, but know that this is your time, your window of opportunity. Don’t let it slip away. Don’t get satisfied with where you are. Put it all onto Daniels — he has proven his shoulders are big enough to handle it — and keep making pkays around him. Can he outplay running back Saquon Barkley, whose Eagles will begin handing the ball off to him sometime on Saturday night? That’s the main question. It would be saucy to pick the Commaders, but I think Barkley wears them down and the Eagles, with all the pressure on them in this game, win by five points in a workmanlike performance that has all the flair of a sledgehammer. 

*Bills at Chiefs — 6:30 p.m. — AFC — Buffalo and Allen are really good, but Kansas City and Mahomes are really great, iconic. They’re the champions, and you have to knock out the champs to win. I don’t think the Bills will. The Chiefs by four points.

As an aside, the Browns have been here, to the conference title game, one win away from going to the Super Bowl, on five occasions, following the 1968, 1969, 1986, 1987 and 1989 seasons. Based on where they’re at now, the sixth time, sadly, isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Steve King