-
Jeff Legwold, ESPN Senior WriterNov 11, 2024, 06:00 AM ET
- Jeff Legwold is a senior writer who covers the Denver Broncos and the NFL at ESPN. Jeff has covered the Broncos for more than 20 years, joining ESPN in 2013. He also assists with NFL draft coverage, including his annual top 100 prospects. Jeff has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999. He has attended every scouting combine since 1987.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Denver Broncos‘ locker room on Sunday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium was a collection of raw nerves and emotion. The Broncos learned a painful lesson — that their wiggle room is still so limited that doing almost everything right still might not be enough to beat a top team.
After an afternoon when the Broncos felt they controlled the Kansas City Chiefs, the two-time defending Super Bowl champions blocked Broncos’ kicker Wil Lutz‘s 35-yard game-winning field goal attempt on the final play. So instead of Sean Payton getting the signature win of his two-season Broncos tenure, Denver was left with the empty feeling of being painfully close but ultimately unsuccessful in a 16-14 loss.
“Proud of how they fought, thought we outplayed them,” Payton said. “But nonetheless you’ve got to beat a champion, and we weren’t able to do it. Obviously gut-wrenching.”
Editor’s Picks
2 Related
“Our job as a field goal unit is to put the ball between the uprights, and we didn’t do it,” Lutz said.
As the Broncos (5-5) continue the quest to end their current eight-year playoff drought, no team has vexed them like the Chiefs, and no player has tormented them like Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Sunday was the ninth consecutive Broncos loss in the Chiefs’ home stadium — 2015 was the last time they won there — and the Chiefs are now 13-1 against Denver when Mahomes starts.
Sunday served as another reminder that the Broncos haven’t broken through and how they have little margin for error if they hope to do so. Denver has yet to beat a team that currently has a winning record, and its five losses have come to the five best teams it has played record-wise, including the Baltimore Ravens (7-3) and Chiefs (9-0) the past two weeks.
Sunday’s loss came despite an all-around solid game by the Broncos. They did not turn the ball over, registered more sacks of Mahomes (four) than in any previous meeting against him, gave up only one touchdown on four red-zone drives and limited the Chiefs’ running backs to 38 rushing yards.
“On both sides of the ball, I felt like we were the more physical team,” Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II said. “… I bet you if you was to ask them about this game, they would look at it the same way, too.”
Yet the Broncos were down two points when the Chiefs powered through the left side of the Broncos’ front on Lutz’s attempted game-winner. Broncos offensive lineman Alex Forsyth ended up on the ground so linebacker Leo Chenal could block the kick, and the Chiefs escaped as Super Bowl ring bearers often do.
Jonathon Cooper and the Broncos defense sacked Patrick Mahomes four times and had nine hits on him, but it wasn’t enough to give Denver its first win in Kansas City since 2015. Jay Biggerstaff/Imagn Images
“Feel very close at times,” Broncos quarterback Bo Nix said. “Feel like you’re right there, you just got to get over that hump. … Hats off to them, they’ve just have found ways to win, over and over again …
“[It’s] impressive to see that they’re capable of that, [that they] find ways to win, and hopefully we’ll find that same way and be able to do that same thing.”
Offensive erosion in the second half provided just enough room for the Chiefs to erase the early deficit. The Broncos scored touchdowns on two of their first four possessions on Sunday, taking a 14-3 lead with 6:39 left in the first half after a 32-yard touchdown pass from Nix to wide receiver Courtland Sutton.
But between that touchdown and their final possession, when Nix drove the Broncos to the Kansas City 17-yard line to set up Lutz’s potential game-winner, the Broncos only gained 58 yards over four consecutive possessions. Those possessions ended with a missed field goal and three punts. The Chiefs scored 13 grind-it-out points in that span on a fourth-down touchdown pass from Mahomes to Travis Kelce and two Harrison Butker field goals.
But as Payton has said all season, little mistakes here and there have derailed the Broncos. Sunday was no different, as a 17-yard run by Audric Estime in the third quarter — which would have been Denver’s longest of the game — was negated by a holding penalty on guard Ben Powers. The Broncos punted three plays later, a 30-yard boot by Riley Dixon which set the Chiefs up on a field goal drive that closed them to 14-13.
Before that, a false start when Nix was trying to ground the ball at the end of the first half moved the Broncos back from the Chiefs’ 37 to their 42. Lutz’s subsequent 60-yard field goal attempt to end the half fell a yard short.
Follow the NFL all season long
• Full schedule » | Standings »
• Depth charts for every team »
• Transactions » | Injuries »
• Football Power Index »
• Playoff picture projections »
More NFL coverage »
“We’re close … we have to find a way to make a play when they don’t, make a play that wins it,” Nix said. “In this league, that’s the line between playoff teams and teams that win championships and all the other guys.
“It doesn’t hurt if you don’t care, it doesn’t hurt if it doesn’t mean anything to you, it doesn’t hurt if you don’t put in work. Everybody in that locker room is hurt because we do all that stuff. … Eventually it’s going to go in our favor … one day it will just go our way.”
Through it all, the Broncos sit in the No. 7 spot in the AFC’s postseason chase, one game ahead of the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals. The Broncos host the Colts on Dec. 15 and will play at the Bengals two weeks later.
They have three games over their final seven against teams that currently have a winning record. The host the Atlanta Falcons (6-4) on Sunday, play at the Los Angeles Chargers (6-3) on Dec. 22 and host the Chiefs in the regular-season finale on Jan. 5.
“Just keep on building, keep on building,” Surtain said. “… It was right there.”
