Entering Week 8, Patrick Mahomes had never lost a divisional road game. The All-Pro quarterback had also never lost to the Denver Broncos.
The Broncos turned the page on that particular trope by defeating the Kansas City Chiefs, 24-9, on Sunday, snapping their AFC West foe’s 16-game winning streak over them. Denver’s victory wouldn’t have been possible if not for a phenomenal performance by Vance Joseph’s defense.
The Broncos picked off Mahomes twice, forced a fumble on him, and held the World Champion quarterback to a pedestrian (for him) 241 yards passing with zero touchdowns and an atrocious rating of 59.2. Mahomes was hit 11 times by the Broncos’ defense and sacked three thrice.
Every dog has its day. And you know what they say: nobody beats the Broncos 17 times in a row.
In all seriousness, Mahomes gave the Broncos and their fans props after the game.
“Obviously, I felt the worst I’ve felt walking out of the stadium,” Mahomes said post-game. “It’s a great environment. I actually had a lot a lot of fun playing here. The fans are awesome. They enjoy the game and know the game, but it just kind of is what it is. They beat us, they were a better football team today and I give them their props.”
Mahomes didn’t feel good leaving the field, but his All-Pro teammate Travis Kelce ran off the field without shaking anyone’s hand. Apparently, Kelce couldn’t face his victorious foes after a fair-and-square victory with the same grace as he did for all those years as the winner of these Broncos-Chiefs matchups. A tell-tale sign of the heart that beats within that particular tight end.
Many skeptics point to Mahomes purportedly coming down with the flu over the weekend as the reason for the Broncos’ success. But Mahomes played down his illness and pointed to how Joseph’s plan vs. the Chiefs worked twice in the past three weeks.
“They did pretty much the same as they did last time they played us,” Mahomes said. “It worked once and they ran again and obviously, it worked again.”
The Chiefs defeated the Broncos in Week 6 at Arrowhead Stadium, 19-8. While Denver wasn’t as successful in taking the ball away in that game, Joseph’s scheme definitely stymied the high-flying Chiefs’ offense.
Mahomes claimed that there was never any doubt about him playing on Sunday. The Broncos simply out-coached and out-executed the Chiefs, for the first time since the Peyton Manning era.
Some wonder whether the Chiefs were sleeping on the Broncos, looking past them to their trip to Germany next week to face the Miami Dolphins, who dropped 70 points on the Broncos in Week 3. There might be a shade of truth to that.
But that points, again, to the veracity of Mahomes’ words. The Broncos were the better team on Sunday, in part, because they had their mind right.
The intangibles impact the gridiron as much as the tangibles, the blocking, tackling, running, passing, and kicking. From A-to-Z, the Broncos were on point, fielding a complimentary performance for 60 minutes across all three phases.
Now, Denver goes into its bye, having opted not to partake in another trade ahead of the NFL deadline on Tuesday. In so doing, Sean Payton pushed all his chips in on the Broncos making a run down the stretch.
At 3-5, it’ll take the same type of performance Denver displayed against the Chiefs to even have a shot at earning a playoff spot as a Wildcard. But as Week 8 revealed, eventually, the Law of Averages breaks your team’s way.
Perhaps it was a harbinger of what’s to come for the Broncos in the remaining nine games of the season. Stay tuned.
