Broncos Will Have A Different Plan For Kenneth Walker III

The Denver Broncos were embarrassed by Kansas City Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker III, as he rushed for 178 yards in the Broncos’ 31-10 loss. The Broncos do have a plan in place to contain or stop Walker this time around, but it’s not as simple as you’d think. 

The Broncos’ tackling was awful in that first meeting, so part of the fix is that just showing up and executing basic tackling concepts will result in improvement. That’s true to some extent, but the rest is a lot more complicated, according to Nick Kosmider of The Athletic. 

Linebacker Alex Singleton said i’s all about getting back to fundamentals, so that part is simple. But the Broncos have also now seen tape on how the Seattle Seahawks stopped Walker on Sunday night in their 20-3 win over the Chiefs, and they’ll use that as part of their game plan on Sunday. 

That’s where the complications enter the picture. The Seahawks were able to choke off a lot of Walker’s cutback lanes, and they also knew what the running back was trying to do when he went to bounce runs outside. Some of that carries over to Denver’s game plan, but not all of it. 

That means cross referencing what Seattle did and matching it up with Denver’s personnel and schemes. In some cases there’s a match for what a specific player can do, but that’s not always the case. 

The scheme plays a role as well. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph likes to blitz from multiple angles and bring players who aren’t normally pass rushers, so that might negate something Seattle was able to use successfully. 

The environment will play a role, too. The Broncos were playing at Arrowhead the first time around in front of a jacked-up crowd that wanted to see what Walker could do, and when he started having success the defensive breakdowns began happening as well. 

This game will be at Mile High Empower, where the Broncos are a very different team. They used their defense to beat Seattle there, and the unit feeds off the crowd noise. The result was a total of 18 quarterback hits on Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold, which led to two late interceptions. 

Coach Sean Payton doesn’t think this is a must-win game because “there’s too much season to be played,” but it is important in the context of tiebreakes as the two teams compete for a division title. The Broncos also need to get a handle on Walker going forward, because they’ll be seeing a lot of him for the next couple of seasons.