KANSAS CITY, Mo. >> Patrick Mahomes has been around Travis Kelce long enough to know that there are two different versions of the tight end.

There’s the regular-season Trav, a Hall of Fame-worthy player in his own right, and there is postseason Trav, who has ascended to near-mythic status while helping the Chiefs win three Super Bowls and close within two more wins of a fourth.

Despite a pedestrian season by his standards, the 35-year-old Kelce came alive again Saturday in the divisional round against the Texans, catching seven passes for 117 yards and a touchdown in a 23-14 win. That was all but 60 of the yards Mahomes had passing for the game, and accounted for well over half of their 212 yards of total offense.

“Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games. That’s how simple it is,” said Mahomes, who delivered that TD throw to Kelce while he was getting dragged to the ground by a Houston defensive tackle at a decisive moment in the game.

“He just goes out and executes at a high level, just like he does in the regular season, but at a higher intensity in the playoffs.”

What a coincidence.

The Chiefs do the exact same thing.

Sure, they went 15-2 in the regular season and rolled to the No. 1 seed and first-round bye, but the two-time defending Super Bowl champs did it by squeaking out last-second wins — on made field goals, blocked field goals, fourth-down stops and every other way imaginable. It never seemed as if the Chiefs were a juggernaut barreling toward another championship.

But it sure looked that way Saturday.

The offense may have chosen to control the ball and avoid any miscues, resulting in a modest yardage total, but the defense balanced it out with eight sacks of C.J. Stroud. And their special teams were on point, nearly returning a kickoff for a touchdown and hitting all of their field-goal and PAT attempts, sending them to their seventh straight AFC championship game.

Wouldn’t you know it? Their opponent is once again Buffalo, which beat the Ravens 27-25 on Sunday. The Chiefs have defeated the Bills three times in the playoffs since January 2021, including a 38-24 victory that year for a spot in the Super Bowl.

“Every feeling and every journey is different,” Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones said, “because of what you have to go through within the journey. You think about the battles we faced to get here — we lost to the Patriots (in 2019), and we had to overcome that and finally get a (Super Bowl) win. I think this is a different kind of journey. We’ve been here a couple of times, and we are even hungrier to get there now because what is at stake: a three-peat.”

The Chiefs made life miserable for Stroud on Saturday. George Karlaftis had three of their eight sacks, including one on fourth down late to help preserve the win. The most impressive thing about that total is that the Chiefs, who rely heavily on blitzing to get to the quarterback, were able to get pressure without resorting to bringing the house.