The NFL is a cruel workplace when it comes to injury luck. One team’s crippling blow is sometimes another’s good fortune, and the latter is definitely the case for the Kansas City Chiefs as they face the Denver Broncos tomorrow in a key divisional battle. 

The specific good fortune is the injury to running back J.K. Dobbins, and it’s truly a game-changer in every sense of the word. The Denver offense has already been shaky and inconsistent for the last month or so, but Dobbins was one of the bright spots before he sustained the devastating foot injury that has him facing surgery and likely out for the season. 

So what does it all mean for this game? Start with the Broncos running back depth, which isn’t designed to replace Dobbins at all. At 5’8” and just over 200 pounds, running back RJ Harvey is considered too small to be a lead back, and Denver has mostly been using him for outside runs and as a receiver. 

The other options are more of the same. Running back Tyler Badie is slightly smaller than Harvey, and running back Jaleel McLaughlin is even smaller than Badie. They’ll both see time tomorrow as the Broncos attempt to spread the load, but the simple fact is that most of Denver’s ground game just got wiped out with a single injury. 

It’s not all that hard to figure out what this means to Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, of course. He loves to pressure the quarterback, and he was probably planning to do plenty of that before Dobbins got hurt. Now he has less of a running game to worry about, which means Cheifs pass rushers can basically pin back their ears and go after Nix. 

They won’t do this right away, though. Spagnuolo has no idea what the Denver offense will look like without Dobbins, so he’ll likely stay conservative for the first couple of series until he sees what the Broncos are about without their star running back. 

After that all bets are off. The Chiefs needs this game to avoid dropping to .500, but they have loftier goals at hand. They want to gain a game and serve notice to the rest of the league that they’re back and ready to deal, and pressuring Broncos quarterback Bo Nix will be an essential part of the plan. 

Denver will try to rely on its stingy defense as much as possible, but that strategy has come close to failing in tight games against bad teams. Now they have to try it against quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and it’s hard to see that working with Dobbins out.