The Chiefs’ first loss of the season came against Seattle, but their next challenge might be even more interesting: a second crack at Denver.
Kansas City opened 2026 with five straight wins before Sunday night’s 20-3 defeat to the reigning Super Bowl champion Seahawks. Now the Chiefs have to clean up what went wrong there and turn quickly to a Broncos team that beat them in the first meeting of the year, which came all the way back in Week 1.
That opener on Monday Night Football ended in a 31-10 Kansas City win, and the biggest question centered on Patrick Mahomes in his first game action since a severe knee injury last December. The two-time NFL MVP was solid enough, going 15 of 27 for 184 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. But the night belonged to Kenneth Walker III, who delivered 173 rushing yards and a touchdown, plus 18 receiving yards and another score on three catches.
Denver looked much different then than it does now. Since that loss, the Broncos have gone 5-1, beating the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Los Angeles Rams, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Seahawks, and the Arizona Cardinals. Their only setback came against the San Francisco 49ers, who also fell from the unbeaten ranks this past Sunday after losing to the Atlanta Falcons.
The bigger picture, though, is Kansas City’s track record in these second meetings with Denver since Mahomes became the starter in 2017. For years, the Chiefs owned this part of the rivalry.
From 2017 through 2022, they swept every second game against the Broncos and, in fact, won every game in the series during that span. The dominance stretches even further back, with Kansas City also winning the second meeting in 2015 and sweeping the series in 2016.
The recent trend looks different on paper: the Chiefs have lost the last three second matchups with Denver. But the last two need context.
The 2023 loss stands on its own. Kansas City had already beaten Denver 19-8 in Week 6, but then dropped the second meeting 24-9 in Week 8. Mahomes had a rough day, throwing no touchdowns and two interceptions, while Russell Wilson threw three touchdown passes without a pick as the Broncos snapped their long skid against Andy Reid’s team.
The 2024 result was not much of a true measuring stick. Denver’s 38-0 win came in Week 18, and Kansas City had already locked up the No. 1 seed in the AFC and sat its starters with a 15-1 record.
Last year’s second matchup was also heavily tilted by circumstance. Mahomes had been injured 11 days earlier and did not play in the Christmas Day game at Arrowhead.
Chris Oladokun started and threw for only 66 yards, yet Denver still needed a late Bo Nix touchdown pass and a defensive stand to escape with a 20-13 win. That said, the Broncos had already beaten a healthy Mahomes in the first meeting, when Nix guided a 10-play, 58-yard drive late to set up Will Lutz’s 35-yard field goal at the buzzer in a 22-19 Denver win.
So the streak is real, but the story behind it is more complicated than the record suggests. Kansas City will get another shot soon enough to see whether that second-game pattern against Denver finally changes.
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The added pressure has only intensified since the Chiefs brought in Justin Tucker on the practice squad, giving the team another accomplished leg in the building and another voice in the mix. Both kickers have offered advice aimed at helping Butker sharpen things up, and for now the job still belongs to the player Kansas City trusts most when the game is on the line. [Read more 🡒]
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For the Chiefs, the fit is easy to understand. They know Brown, they know what he can do when healthy, and they have a history of turning to players who already understand the system. The question is whether Philadelphia decides to move him at all, and if it does, how much of a return it would take to make a deal worth doing for a receiver whose recent production has been muted. [Read more 🡒]