Patrick Mahomes on watching Bills-Bengals game that may impact Chiefs’ playoff seed

Kansas City routinely generates large television ratings for national NFL games, even when the Chiefs aren’t playing. Football is king in KC.

It’ll be interesting to see which cities have the highest TV ratings for Monday night’s Bills-Bengals game in Cincinnati. KC could be near the top because the outcome will have a big impact on the Chiefs’ seeding in the playoffs.

A Bengals’ victory would give the Chiefs a one-game lead over Buffalo for the top seed. The Bills would drop to the third seed heading into Week 18, while the Bengals would move into the No. 2 slot.

The bottom line: a Bengals’ victory on “Monday Night Football” would be a boost for the Chiefs.

After the Chiefs beat the Broncos 27-24 on Sunday, quarterback Patrick Mahomes was asked in his news conference about the “Monday Night Football” showdown.

“It’s going to keep me up past my bedtime,” Mahomes said. “It’s going to end up starting at 8 o’clock. I try not to be too invested in it. It’s going to be a great football game with two great teams. And teams that you’re probably going to see in the playoffs, probably both or one or the other. You just try to just watch as a fan as I always do. I mean it’s great quarterbacks, great defenses, great players and as a fan of the game I like watching great football teams go up against each other.”

Kickoff will be a little later than usual for a Monday night game. ESPN will air the Rose Bowl, so the Bills-Bengals game will start at 7:30 p.m. and air on KMBC (Ch. 9) and, after the conclusion of the Rose Bowl, ESPN.

Defensive end Frank Clark was asked by reporters about the Bengals-Bills contest and if the Chiefs will be paying attention to the outcome.

“I mean, enough,” Clark said. “Obviously, it’s got to do with our seeding, but we won our game, so you know you go enjoy it (and) you’ve got family around, it’s New Year’s (Day). But it’s ‘Monday Night Football,’ so you want to watch some football and enjoy the game a little bit.”

Coach Andy Reid had an inkling the Chiefs regular-season finale at Las Vegas would be flexed to Saturday as it was. He told reporters it may be difficult to sit down and just watch the Bengals-Bills contest.

“Yeah, we’ll see how it goes,” Reid told reporters Sunday. “We’ll be in and out of (meetings). What we’ve done is we have to take it as if we’re playing on Saturday. That’s how you have to go about it. So our coaches were working today and yesterday — this morning and yesterday — finishing up the run game and some of the pass game stuff.

“And so, we’ll get tomorrow to add a little bit to it and then we’re right into it. So, we’re treating it like (it’s a Saturday game), which is the only way you can do it. If they sprawl a Saturday on us, we have to be ready to roll.”