The Denver Broncos got punched in the mouth on Monday night, and the part that should set off alarms isn’t just the score. It’s what happened on the ground.
Kansas City rolled up 220 rushing yards in Week 1, and Denver never found a real answer once the game started slipping away in the second half. The Chiefs’ major free agency addition, Kenneth Walker III, turned in the best outing of his career, piling up 173 yards on 23 carries for 7.5 yards per attempt.
He broke loose for a 60-yard touchdown run, while Patrick Mahomes added 23 rushing yards and a score of his own. Rookie Emmett Johnson chipped in 24 yards on eight carries.
That kind of production is a brutal look for a defense that has spent the last few years carrying a reputation as one of the league’s sturdier units. Denver has finished third in points allowed per game in each of the last two seasons, but that résumé did nothing for it here. The Broncos were simply outmuscled.
And this isn’t just about one ugly night. The warning signs were already there in the postseason last year, when Denver gave up 183 rushing yards to the Buffalo Bills and 141 to the New England Patriots. Now the Broncos enter 2026 with a defense that has also lost John Franklin-Myers and Dre Greenlaw in the offseason, and the concern is obvious: this group may be drifting away from the kind of run defense it has needed to survive.
That matters because this roster is built with lighter bodies and a clear strength in rushing the passer, not absorbing wave after wave of run plays. If opponents can lean on Denver like Kansas City did, the whole operation starts to wobble.
Offensively, Davis Webb’s regular-season debut as play-caller wasn’t pretty either, but that’s a different conversation. He deserves time to settle in.
Vance Joseph, in his fourth year running the defense, doesn’t have that same cushion. The problems here look familiar, and Week 1 exposed a version of them that can’t keep showing up.
If Denver’s run defense looks like this all year, the playoff path gets awfully thin, awfully fast.
In Other News...
Justin Simmons Pulled The Broncos Into A Messy NFL Media Debate
Justin Simmons has dragged the Broncos into an awkward NFL media conversation by raising a pointed question about how stories get covered and why some situations draw far more attention than others. Simmons publicly wondered why the focus has landed on Broncos linebacker Jonathan Coopers domestic violence case while what he viewed as a different off-field controversy involving Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and former NFL reporter Dianna Russini has not drawn the same level of scrutiny.
Vrabel was caught up in an offseason mess after photos of him and Russini at an adults-only resort surfaced, an episode that led to Russinis resignation and an internal investigation by The Athletic. The debate now sits in the background of a Patriots team that already has football problems after dropping its Week 1 game to Seattle, with Drake Maye throwing three interceptions, but Simmons comments have made clear that the Broncos are not looking at this as just another league-wide media skirmish. [Read more 🡒]
ESPN Just Reignited An NFL Double Standard Debate Fans Know Well
During ESPNs Monday Night Football broadcast of the Broncos-Chiefs game, sideline reporter Laura Rutledge noted that Denver defender Jonathon Cooper was absent because he had been placed on the commissioners exempt list following domestic violence charges. The mention put a sensitive off-field issue squarely into the middle of a prime-time NFL telecast, and it immediately became more than a routine injury-or-status update for viewers following the Broncos.
Former Broncos safety Justin Simmons took aim at ESPN for bringing Coopers legal situation into the game coverage, and the reaction quickly spread into a wider conversation among former players and fans. The episode has revived a familiar debate about where broadcast reporters should draw the line when a players controversy becomes part of the nights storyline, especially when the game itself is supposed to be the focus. [Read more 🡒]
Patrick Surtain's Blunt Take Sums Up Denver's Early Reality Check
Denvers season opened with a jolt, and not the kind the Broncos were hoping for. An early interception briefly hinted at a fast start, but the offense stalled from there and the loss quickly turned into a reminder that preseason optimism only matters once the games count. Under Sean Payton, the Broncos expected a sharper launch than what showed up in Week 1, making the gap between projections and reality feel especially stark.
Patrick Surtain II didnt sugarcoat it afterward, saying the team needed a serving of humble pie. It was the kind of blunt assessment that tends to land harder because it comes from one of the rosters most respected voices, and it leaves Denver with an early test of response. The talent is there, the expectations remain high, and now the Broncos have to prove this was just a stumble rather than the first sign of a longer adjustment. [Read more 🡒]