The Broncos walked into Arrowhead with the glow of a 14-win season, an AFC West title, and all the expectations that come with being a team that thought it was close. On Monday night, none of that mattered. Denver got flattened by the Chiefs, 31-10, in a season opener that looked nothing like a fast start and everything like a hard reset.
For a team that needed to come out swinging with a brutal first eight weeks on the schedule, this was the exact opposite of the tone it had to set. Instead, the Broncos delivered what was easily one of the ugliest outings of the Bo Nix era.
There were a few crumbs to pick up, mostly on special teams. Wil Lutz handled his work cleanly, making both his extra point and field-goal try, and Jeremy Crawshaw gave Denver solid punting with a 52.3-yard average and a long of 68.
The return game also offered a small bright spot. Marvin Mims Jr. had a 19-yard punt return wiped out by a Tycen Anderson hold, then later came back after briefly leaving with a shoulder injury and brought back two punts for 36 yards, averaging 18 per return.
RJ Harvey averaged 27.8 yards on four kickoff returns, and rookie Jonah Coleman added one return for 27 yards.
That’s about where the comfort ended.
Nix had a rough night from the opening possession, when he tossed a bad interception, and things only got messier from there. He put the ball on the ground three times and lost one of those fumbles.
As a passer, he finished 17-of-28 for 131 yards and a touchdown, with a 69.2 rating. He looked unsettled throughout, and after an offseason that included two separate ankle surgeries, the rust showed in a hurry.
The debut of Davis Webb as the primary play-caller didn’t help. In his first game running the offense, Webb came off badly.
Courtland Sutton and Jaylen Waddle were barely part of the plan, combining for eight targets, three catches, and 13 yards. Meanwhile, the Broncos barely touched the run game in the first half, taking only six rushing attempts before finishing with 61 yards on 15 carries.
That was especially frustrating because the backs actually produced when they were given the ball. J.K.
Dobbins averaged 4.5 yards per carry, and Harvey was even better at 6.0. They just didn’t get enough chances to matter.
One of the clearest examples came on a 3rd-&-1 Denver had to have, when Webb went with an empty set and no running back in the backfield. Kansas City blitzed, Nix got flushed, and the drive died with an incompletion and a punt.
It also made Denver’s decision to elevate fullback Adam Prentice from the practice squad look wasted in real time.
The offensive line didn’t do Nix any favors, either. He was under pressure far too often, and while he didn’t help himself, it’s hard to pin much of this on the quarterback when the protection broke down against a Chiefs front seven that, outside of Chris Jones, doesn’t exactly scare anybody.
Denver’s third-down numbers tell the story all by themselves: 2-for-12, with Kansas City stuffing the Broncos on nine straight third-down tries. That’s not a bad night. That’s a collapse.
The defense wasn’t any cleaner. Trevor Sikkema’s numbers painted the picture in brutal detail: the Broncos allowed 248 missed-tackle yards, the most ever in a single game in the Next Gen Stats database, and finished with a 29.8 missed-tackle percentage.
It wasn’t just one level of the defense either. Alex Singleton and Justin Strnad were part of the mess, but the sloppiness ran through the entire unit.
The front line missed tackles. The edge players missed tackles.
The defensive backs missed tackles. Even the safeties couldn’t clean it up, and Brandon Jones’s whiff on Kenneth Walker III’s 60-yard touchdown was one of the night’s clearest low points.
Walker gashed Denver for 173 yards on 23 carries, and the Chiefs rolled up 392 total yards. Strip out those 248 missed-tackle yards, and the Broncos would have allowed just 144 yards - a very different game, even with all the offensive problems.
That leaves Vance Joseph with another early-season mess to solve. He has recovered from collective embarrassment before, and he’ll need that same kind of response now if Denver is going to stop the slide. If not, the next five opponents are going to have a feast.
One game in, the Broncos are already on DEFCON 4 alert.
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 🡒]