Broncos Roundtable: How Denver can beat Kansas City

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The good news is the Denver Broncos will have a starting quarterback for Sunday’s game.

The bad news is they play the 10-1 Kansas City Chiefs.

The last time the Broncos beat the Chiefs was Sept. 17, 2015. Peyton Manning was the Broncos quarterback in that game and Patrick Mahomes was a sophomore at Texas Tech. Oh how so much has changed in the five years since the Broncos last beat the Chiefs.

Although it’s certainly not an easy task, the Chiefs are beatable.

The DNVR Broncos Crew discusses the best formula for doing so.

HOW CAN DENVER BEAT KANSAS CITY?

Zac

Double up the Chiefs on the ground — Patrick Mahomes is 38-9 in his NFL career. In eight of his nine losses, the Chiefs have had fewer rushing yards than their opponent.

In fact, in Mahomes’ nine losses, the Chiefs have averaged only 79 rushing yards, while their opponents have averaged 166 yards on the ground. However, in those nine games, both the Chiefs and their opponents rushed for 4.6 yards per carry. The difference was Kansas City’s opponent stayed committed to the ground game. In those games, the Chiefs averaged 17 rushing attempts per game to their opponents 36 attempts per game.

Additionally, Kansas City’s opponents have turned a dominant ground performance into points. In Mahomes’ nine career losses, the Chiefs’ opponents have averaged a whopping 36 points per game.

On the flip side, opposing teams have forced the Chiefs to be one dimensional and put everything on Patrick Mahomes’ shoulders. As crazy as it is, that’s the way to beat the Chiefs. Now Mahomes certainly may beat a team singlehandedly, but history would show it’s nearly impossible to beat the Chiefs when they are two dimensional.

The Broncos have had more rushing yards than their opponent four times in 2020. They are 2-2 in those games. When they haven’t had more rushing yards than their opponent they are 2-5. However, they’ve only doubled the rushing yards of their opponent once—in a 20-13 win against the Miami Dolphins in Week 11.

To pull out the win on Sunday Night Football, the Broncos will need to drop 30+ points on Kansas City and have twice the rushing yards as the Chiefs. Regardless of their opponent, the Broncos haven’t done that this season.

Mase

Play keep-away — It’s not enough to run the football. The Broncos must also dictate the tempo, minimize the Chiefs’ opportunities and shorten the game. That combination is the most successful one; in the last three seasons, Kansas City is 1-6 when its opponent runs at least 48 percent of the time and wins the time-of-possession battle.

To do this requires patience, low-mistake football and a defense that forces Mahomes and Co. to settle for field goals, thus preventing the Chiefs from pulling away.

Patience comes into play with the Broncos’ game plan; if they fall behind by 7 to 10 points early, they must stick with a deliberate, tempo-oriented attack, having faith that first-half jabs on the ground can tenderize the Chiefs to the point where those same punches become haymakers in the second half.

If the Broncos do all this, they have a chance at what could be the franchise’s biggest regular-season upset since at least 1972.

Ryan

Play perfect and get all the bounces — Sounds unrealistic, eh? Well, the Broncos beating the Chiefs is pretty unrealistic, but upset happens in the NFL every week and they all follow a similar formula. The underdog gets an early big play that gives them a confidence boost, they play well above their average and they get several big bounces throughout the game.

Denver is probably going to need a long touchdown, a big special teams play and multiple turnovers as a baseline. Beyond that, they’ll have to play much, much better than they have at any point this year when it comes to sustaining drives, converting third downs and running the football.

It’s not likely, but it is possible.

FINAL SCORE PREDICTIONS AT CHIEFS (-13.5)

Zac

Chiefs 34, Broncos 16 — In the past three games against Kansas City, Denver has scored 25 points… total. Since becoming the Chiefs defensive coordinator in 2019, Steve Spagnuolo has had the Broncos number, including in Week 7 when he held Denver to 16 points. That was, however, 10 more points than Drew Lock was able to put up against Kansas City when he returned home as a rookie last year.

In Week 7, Vic Fangio and Denver’s defense actually held Mahomes to one of his worst statistical performances of the year. Mahomes’ 200 passing yards are still the fewest he’s had in a game this year. There are two frightening parts about that. The first is the Chiefs still scored a season-high 43 points in that game. The second is it’ll be extremely difficult to contain Mahomes two times in one season.

The last two times the Broncos played in Arrowhead on primetime, Trevor Siemian threw three interceptions and Dontari Poe had a touchdown pass. Coming off a game in which the Broncos didn’t have a single quarterback active, Sunday could be one of those types of games again for Denver.

Mase

Chiefs 30, Broncos 17 — Forget that last week’s game happened — for both the Broncos’ offense and defense. The win over Miami seven days earlier offered promise for the defense, which held Miami to 13 points, barely half of its average per-game output. It came after three weeks in which the Broncos allowed the Chargers, Falcons and Raiders to score an average of 7.5 points more than their season-long averages.

Denver has held Kansas City’s offense to a respectable 25.0 points per game in the three contests between the clubs in the Fangio era. If Bryce Callahan were available, one would expect the Broncos to have similar success against the Chiefs, which would keep the Broncos in it. But without Callahan — and the prospect of two rookie cornerbacks when Denver goes into its nickel sub package — the Broncos will be hard-pressed to contain the Chiefs.

Ryan

Chiefs 31, Broncos 17 — The Broncos just simply aren’t in the same league as the Chiefs right now and that has played itself out time and time again in the Vic Fangio era. While this looks like a bad result, it would be the closest game since Fangio took over.