Four times now, Sean McDermott has stood behind a podium and answered questions about why his team could not solve Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the playoffs.

No matter whether the teams clash in Missouri or New York, who has the ball last, whether the game ends in regulation or overtime or even if the Bills have a 99 percent chance to win and just have to prevent a field goal for just 13 seconds, McDermott and the Bills can’t get over the hump that is the Chiefs.

“They’re a good football team, they’ve won two Super Bowls, they’ve been to seven straight AFC Championship games. That’s no excuse, this is a good football team. We got to keep working at it to get over that hump, there’s no doubt about it,” McDermott said after Sunday’s 32-29 setback in the AFC Championship game. “We’ve won a lot of tough games this year against really good opponents, really good coaches and I’m proud of this team for it. This is obviously a challenge for us. We’ll figure it out.”

The Bills being the ’90s NBA playoff contender running into the Chiefs’ Michael Jordan Bulls teams each postseason brings coaching decisions under the spotlight, especially when McDermott has yet to out-duel his Kansas City counterpart in Andy Reid in the postseason.

McDermott didn’t catch flak like he did three years ago when the Bills couldn’t bring home the victory with 13 seconds left, but he made some debatable and questionable decisions Sunday.

Some wondered why running back James Cook, who wowed with 134 total yards and two touchdowns, did not touch the ball on the final drive.

The first play of said drive went to backup Ty Johnson, who lost a yard on a rush.

Which players are used falls more under offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s jurisdiction, but a head coach usually can dictate if they believe a player should be in the game.

“James Cook was a monster tonight … until the Bills neglected him with the game on the line,” Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde posted.

In the tangent theme of running the ball, some wondered about the Bills’ continued reliance on quarterback sneaks with Josh Allen when the Chiefs defended them well all game.

Kansas City stuffed Allen on a third-and-goal at the one-yard line in the third quarter, and the Bills needed two Allen sneaks in the third quarter to gain one yard.

The game-changing play came in the fourth when Allen got stopped short of the line on fourth-and-1 with the Bills ahead, 22-21.

Some believed Allen secured the first down, but a review upheld the call.

McDermott acknowledged the Bills perhaps could have tried a different look.

“It’s been our best play all year at one or inside of one yard. We won some of those, but … they were doing a good job,” McDermott said. “I thought overall, maybe we could have disguised it, maybe not, but at the end of the day we have confidence in Josh and our offensive line to get those and they’ve been getting them all year.”

The Bills also did not help themselves by chasing points early in the game, which set off a chain of events that seemingly hurt them.

Now, this one can certainly be debated due to analytics, but the Bills opted to go for two after slicing the deficit to 21-16 at the end of first half and failed.

When they scored a third-quarter touchdown to take a 22-21 lead, they went for two again and failed.

Had the just kicked the extra points, they would have been ahead 24-21.

We can get into trouble with the fallacy of the predetermined outcome, but if the Bills had been ahead by three, it’s possible the end of the game plays out differently.

If we follow the game’s script and say the Chiefs and Bills both scored touchdowns again, with Kansas City scoring first followed by Buffalo, the Bills would have gone ahead either 30-29, 30-28 or 30-27 before their extra point attempt or two-point conversion try.

There’s a realistic scenario in which the Bills are the ones leading 32-29 before the Chiefs kicked the late field goal, which then would have tied the game.

“We’re a good football team, we’re a good organization, we’ve had a heck of a season, there’s momentum going into next year,” McDermott said. “We’re thankful for the success we had this year. It hurts when you come up short of the Super Bowl or winning a Super Bowl, it hurts. The games come down to inches.”