KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Broncos and Thursday Night Football have not made for a particularly enjoyable viewing experience this season. But on a foggy night in Kansas City that gave way to a sloppy night of offensive football, Denver put the Chiefs away 20-13 to improve to 13-3 and still hold claim to the AFC’s No. 1 seed.
Here’s The Denver Post’s report card from Christmas.
OFFENSE — C
Dink. Dunk. Dink. Dunk. Wind. Clock. Dink. Dunk.
The Broncos entered Week 17 in Kansas City much the same way they entered Week 14 in Las Vegas: take exactly what the opposing defense was giving them. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo played conservative on Thursday night, and the Broncos played directly into Spagnuolo’s hands for the better part of three quarters. Underneath routes were there. Bo Nix took them. And took them. At halftime, Nix was averaging a grueling 3.9 yards per attempt, as viewers across the country may have been compelled to thrust their heads through their television sets on Christmas night.
Execution picked up for Denver in the second half, though, as Nix regained some timing with WR1 Courtland Sutton on a beautiful 23-yard ball up the left sideline. RB2 Jaleel McLaughlin read the field well all night in a 7-carry, 40-yard performance on the ground, and the Broncos’ offensive front demolished the Chiefs’ line on numerous reps, including a Nix designed QB keeper for a third-quarter touchdown. This was ugly. It was just barely enough.
DEFENSE — A-
This was a return to form for Vance Joseph’s unit, which admittedly didn’t have much of a tall task against Chiefs QB3 Chris Oladokun. Oladokun’s longest pass of the day through three quarters came when he literally dropped the football early in the third quarter, picked it up off a bounce, and hit JuJu Smith-Schuster for a 12-yard gain. He finished with exactly 66 passing yards on 13-of-22 attempts. This was not the second coming of Patrick Mahomes.
After a slight miscommunication on a quick-hit Brashard Smith first-half touchdown, though, Joseph’s defense played on a string the rest of Thursday night. D.J. Jones and Eyioma Uwazurike were the normally-unsung stars of the night, bottling up Kansas City’s run-game with numerous one-on-one stops. The Chiefs finished with 82 yards on the ground, and Oladokun had no runway to get going in the passing game, with Broncos corner Riley Moss and safety P.J. Locke authoring encouraging nights after rough respective performances Sunday against Jacksonville.
The score here is adjusted relative to quality of opponent. But Denver’s defense looked largely back in rhythm at Arrowhead.
SPECIAL TEAMS — C-
The Rizzi Train crashed at Arrowhead, after chugging along so smoothly for a few weeks. The fourth quarter brought the biggest special-teams breakdown Denver’s had in weeks, as punter Jeremy Crawshaw lined up a boot that didn’t hang nearly long enough.
Chiefs returner Smith caught it with several yards of cushion to spare, got a couple blocks to send him down the left sideline, and went Christmas-caroling down a merry stretch of grass for a 44-yard return to set up a Kansas City game-tying field goal.
Overall, though, the Broncos exorcised the Arrowhead kicking demons from November 2024, as Broncos kicker Wil Lutz nailed a couple field goals (with none blocked).
COACHING — C+
The Broncos were all-too-content to eat out of Spanguolo’s hand for long stretches Thursday. Payton’s tried to control ugly games and win the time-of-possession battle multiple times this year, and Denver drove Kansas City into the dirt at Arrowhead. The problem: they didn’t drive quite hard enough.
Payton’s run-pass distribution again got away from him in the first half against the Chiefs, as Nix threw the ball 22 times with little to show for it. The Broncos’ head coach went with more touches to the backfield tandem of RJ Harvey and McLaughlin on a third-quarter scoring drive — but relied all-too-heavily on the bubble-screen and underneath game in subsequent quarters. With the Broncos at the Chiefs’ 17-yard-line and 3:54 left, Payton drew up a screen for Marvin Mims that lost three, than another Nix dropback that turned into a scramble, than another Nix dropback where he threw short of the sticks. Not the most efficient play-sequencing.
The Broncos’ head coach, though, came out smelling like roses on the biggest play of the game in the fourth quarter — sending his offense out on a 4th-and-2 for a direct snap to RJ Harvey, only to draw Chiefs All-Pro Chris Jones offsides. And Denver nearly doubled Kansas City in time-of-possession, 39:28 to 20:32.
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