These Broncos must find a way to stop flunking their biggest tests

Like it or not, the Kansas City Chiefs are the standard for success in the AFC West, and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Andy Reid’s collection of talent has won four division titles in a row and is likely to make it five in the next two months. The team has a young quarterback in Patrick Mahomes whose accomplishments in his first 40 NFL starts are matched only by Hall of Famer Kurt Warner.

And the Broncos aren’t getting any closer.

If anything, the Chiefs are putting the orange and blue further in their rear-view mirror. A rivalry that burned white-hot in the mid-2010s with the teams battling for division titles and postseason positioning now resembles CU-Nebraska, circa 1984 … or Rockies-Dodgers, circa now and seemingly forever.

The 43-16 thrashing was the most lopsided defeat the Broncos have suffered at home in nearly nine years. It was the third consecutive loss by at least 20 points to the Chiefs; four of the previous six defeats were by one score, including both losses in 2018.

The object in the Chiefs’ rear-view mirror is fading from view, although at least one Bronco feels otherwise.

“I think we’re neck-and-neck,” left tackle Garett Bolles said. “That’s just me, personally. I don’t think there’s really anything that makes them more spectacular than us.”

But finding parity is not about being spectacular and having a high ceiling. After all, the Broncos had more explosive plays — 20-plus yards — than the Chiefs, winning that statistic by a 5-3 count.

It is also about being steady and not screwing up. It’s about possessing the confidence to take what is there, rather than forcing the issue. And it’s also about avoiding self-inflicted miscues. 

The Broncos had four turnovers that led directly to 17 Chiefs points; the Chiefs had one that led to a Broncos touchdown. A coverage lapse led to a 102-yard kickoff return for a Kansas City touchdown; the Broncos, meanwhile, haven’t returned a kickoff or a punt for a score in nearly five years. 

Anyone who has watched the Broncos in the three-plus seasons since their last winning campaign is familiar with these woes. 

The Broncos make some big plays to keep them in it, then undermine themselves with bigger mistakes to render those explosions meaningless.

The dominant performance against Houston last December now looks like the aberration for the entire team. Whether the margin was close — as it was to Tennessee and Pittsburgh in Weeks 1 and 2 — or lopsided, as it has been against the Chiefs and was in Week 4 against the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers, all of these defeats share common threads in their DNA. 

These are turnovers, special-teams gaffes, poor decisions, unforced lapses of execution. Sunday’s loss featured all of those colors on the rainbow of misery that is the Broncos’ performance against the league’s better sides.

In each of those defeats something of value was wasted. Sunday, it was another solid defensive performance against the Chiefs. 

It wasn’t perfect, by any means; a pair of missed tackles led directly to Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s game-opening 11-yard touchdown jaunt that put the Chiefs in front to stay. But if not for a short-field touchdown on a Chad Henne-led garbage-time drive — one that wouldn’t have happened if Shelby Harris had not committed an unsportsmanlike-conduct foul after a third-down stop — we would be talking about the Broncos holding the Chiefs to just two offensive touchdowns for the third consecutive time in the series — 1.7 touchdowns below the Chiefs’ average in Mahomes’ starts prior to Sunday.

The Chiefs went 0-for-8 on third downs. The Broncos held them to fewer than 300 yards from scrimmage.

In the second and third quarters, the Chiefs had four first downs, three punts and three possessions out of five that ended without moving the chains … and they outscored the Broncos 20-3.

Not since 1965 had the Broncos allowed this many points while holding an opponent to fewer than 300 yards.

The cop-out in yet another Broncos post-game autopsy is to put all of this on quarterback Drew Lock. His struggles were obvious Sunday: staring down receivers, throwing off his back foot, trying to play hero-ball, sub-optimal accuracy. It was a resume tape of all the concerns that existed in some circles leading into the 2019 NFL Draft that caused him to drop into the second round.

“I can make the plays when they’re there, but I’ve just got to get a little better judgment on when it’s time to make that play or say, ‘You know what, they got us,’” Lock said. “Eventually we’ll stop having this conversation, but it needs to happen faster than later, and it will.”

The Broncos’ hopes of finding clear skies and escaping a four-year fog of mediocrity rest upon Lock making that happen. But he was far from the only culprit.

“We weren’t up to the challenge today,” coach Vic Fangio said.

And after a flogging in which all three phases were culpable, the Chiefs have never seemed so far away.