The Denver Broncos lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-10, but the score doesn't tell the full story here.
The Denver Broncos couldn't tackle, move the ball or score points as they took a 31-10 beatdown from the Kansas City Chiefs last night, and quarterback Bo Nix summed up the loss in three words in a followup report from Jeff Legwold of ESPN, saying it was “pretty pitiful, actually.”
The Broncos have been talking playoffs and taking the next step to the Super Bowl, but they were bad from the beginning against Kansas City, and Legwold noted that it was one of the team’s worst all-around peformance since they lost to the Batimore Ravens, 41-10, in Nix’s rookie year in 2024.
"We just let ourselves down ... we literally gave ourselves no chance to succeed and made it easier for them, point blank, period," Nix said. " ... We don't have a choice but to get better, just a nasty wake-up call."
Most of the stats were just as ugly as the game itself. Running back Kenneth Walker averaged 7.5 yards per carry as he rang up 173 yards on the ground, and his 60-yard touchdown run stood out against a defense that allowed just one back to gain more than 70 runs in a game, per Legworld.
The most noticeable aspects of how bad the Broncos were was the poor tackling, which started early and got steadily worse. Walker bullied the Broncos defense, but there will be plenty of other examples on the game tape for coach Sean Payton to use this week.
"We didn't tackle well enough, and then the game became one-dimensional," Payton said. "Really the antithesis of how you beat a good team on the road; it's that simple."
The fix might not be simple, either. Much of the focus this week was on the promotion of Davis Webb to offensive coordinator and Payton turning over the play-calling chores to Webb, and Payton said his initial impression was that there were "a lot of throws, not enough runs,” per Legwold.
"It starts with me, it starts with our coaching staff," Payton said. " ... Our third-down numbers weren't good. Our rushing numbers weren't good. Pick your spot."
Nix defended Webb, of course, but this will be the controversy of the week in Denver as they prepare for their home opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars this week, with Nix trying to put it on the players.
"Absolutely, players did not make it easy on [Webb]," Nix said. " ... He was, to me, in the headset; he was a pro with it. ... We called exactly what we prepared for. We just didn't execute, and then we were behind and just literally we didn't a whole lot of good consistently."
