Chiefs Continue DOMINANCE For 16th Straight Win Over Broncos I Game Recap I CBS Sports

All right, let's dive in. Emory Hunt, Tyler Sullivan here to offer their thoughts, fellas. Do you have anything good for lunch, watching anything good on the TV? Let's dive into what we saw and maybe some of what we did not in this one. I want to start with the offense of Kansas City. First and foremost, play calling, questionable. This Denver defense has been porous at just about every level and still struggling to find offensive momentum. What do you attribute that to? The Denver Broncos secondary matched up really well against this receiving core of the Kansas City Chiefs, especially on a perimeter. We saw a lot of open field over the middle of the field, Rashid Rice had a great game over the middle of the field. Travis Kelsey was the only one getting open over the middle of the field. But outside on the perimeter, the Chiefs had problems separating and also finding those big plays. But at the end of the day, they made more plays in a passing game. Once Andy Reid got from, you know, playing games with the playbook and his play calls tonight, they found success in the middle of the field and they were able to get enough passing plays to win this ballgame. Yeah, I think you tip your cap to Kansas City because like you were saying, Emory, they were able to make those plays that ultimately won them the football game here on a relatively off night for Patrick Mahomes. But I still think the elephant in this room is the lack of continuity. The lack of whatever it is, the chemistry for the wide receivers of the Kansas City Chiefs. It's the whole reason why we're holding our breasts every time Travis Kelsey's limping around on that ankle, because if he goes down as great as Patrick Mahomes is, I don't know what this offense looks like without him right now. I mean, he had 100 yards in the first half. He was the only thing that was really humming for the Kansas City Chiefs in this game. And yeah, Rashid Rice was great, but a lot of that was in garbage time. You know, he had 70 yards, but he had a big game towards the end of that fourth quarter. I still have a ton of question marks about the Kansas City wide receivers and as much as we can attribute to maybe the Denver Broncos flip the switch going into this game. This secondary was the worst in the NFL, so it's either the Denver Broncos flip the switch or they were just going up against a really bad wide receiver room in the Kansas City Chiefs. I'm afraid it might be the latter here. And Tyler, you talked about the elephant in the room. How about the even bigger elephant in the room, Aaron B enemy, him being in Washington. This offense has been out of sync all season long. So maybe he was the guy calling the plays, orchestrating the offense, getting everybody where they need to be. Because to your point, Tyler, this just didn't look like Kansas City last year and the receiving core just didn't seem in sync with Patrick Mahomes and things just kind of off kilter all night. But again, luckily they did a good job finding those plays, making those plays that were there to be made. Their defense actually helped them out tonight against the Broncos. If we want to condense the issue or maybe synthesize it to something more specific, one of five in the red area. I mean, this was an offense, especially in the first half, moving the ball with relative ease in the Kansas City Chiefs, but getting into that condensed area and unable to either get to the right play, call, execute the play properly. Can you give us an idea of how things get harder down there in the red area for a team that has been one of the most potent offenses in the last half decade and in the history of the game? Really? What makes them so potent down in the red zone is the fact that they are able to expand the field or make them in, in between the 20 to 20, they're able to expand the field and use the width of the field, the 53 and a third. But once you get inside the red zone, things condense and you have to be precise. And if you can't lean on your run game, if you can't execute outside on a perimeter on sprint all passes, it's going to be tough. But I do feel like tonight, I believe the kids call it playing with your food. We saw Kansas City do a lot of that inside the red zone. They just have to really dial into what they do well and stick to that in that condensed area because you can't use it with the field inside the green zone. Well, while it felt like we might've found something out about this Denver defense, the one that showed up and kept the team in so many games a year ago, it feels like the offense took a step backwards in this one, Tyler, what did you make of Russell Wilson specifically in this spot? I mean, it doesn't touch a hundred yards passing, gives it away twice, play caller and coach and quarterback, clearly not on the same page there as well. Where are the inefficiencies with Denver here as we round the corner of the first quarter of the season? Yeah, I had in my notes, just going into that first half, I don't know if Sean Payton trusts Russell Wilson. I think it's plain as simple as that. You look at the play calling that you see with the Denver Broncos specifically in the first half, but that even permeated a little bit into that third quarter too. Once the game started to get out of reach, they were pushing the ball a little bit more downfield, but their priority was to run play action, was to put Russell Wilson in situations where he's throwing the ball at or around the line of scrimmage, rolling out to his right to really eliminate half the field. So he really eliminates half the choices that he can make. Sean Payton's really limiting what we're seeing from Russell Wilson and whether or not that's trust in the quarterback, the lack of trust in the wide receivers. There's something there with this Broncos offense that Sean Payton is really trying to protect himself from because they're not really opening it up. I mean, yeah, they were able to do a little bit towards the tail end, but certainly it wasn't Sean Payton's preference to start throwing it deep, throwing it to Courtland Sutton in those situations. Had that been the case? They would have done that earlier in the game. The fact that they're really just going around the line of scrimmage, running screens. That tells me that he doesn't want to put the game in Russell Wilson's hands. Maybe not Russell Wilson's hands. Maybe he doesn't trust these receivers because to me, that's the biggest threat for this offense. The fact that they really can't get things going and they can't find their rhythm. They can't create separation. We didn't really see that from this Broncos receiving core, but despite what we think and Joe, you know this, I do the draft extensively. You look at these scouting reports and you think, okay, they got Jerry Judy, they got Courtland Sutton. They got some dudes out there and they just not living up to that draft status or that scouting report. So maybe he doesn't trust those receivers because you saw that play on fourth and two or fourth and one. You sprint Russell out to the short side of the field with two receivers running out routes to the boundary. Who's open? What's going to happen in that situation? Nothing. And it ended up getting stuffed. So I don't think he trusts these receivers more so than Russell Wilson because Wilson has been playing efficiently, but it's hard to throw it to someone that's not open. It just doesn't look like a cohesive unit right now for Denver quarterbacks getting hit near out of bounds, nobody there to help them up. There's some stuff going on that maybe we do not see that is also leading to these inefficiencies, but offensively really nothing to show here. It is a results based business and I know we're going to nitpick a team like the chiefs because of the expectation we have for them, especially offensively, but that's five consecutive wins after losing on the opening night of the season. Emory, I wouldn't say they're firing on all cylinders right now, but most certainly heading in the right direction when it comes to wins and losses as they self assess right now and try and figure out what this road ahead looks like, who they have to be. Things that are going to get harder at moments. They get the charges before another meeting with the Broncos and then it's a long trip over to Germany to take on a high flying dolphins team. There's a lot out ahead of Kansas city. Where have you seen the improvement? Where do you want to see more improvement? And is this a team that has the makings when you're really looking at the fabric of it, of a team that can go the distance? Absolutely not. I'll tell you why, Joe, when you think about what we normally talk about Kansas city during the season, Hey man, their defense needs to get better. They usually come along on Steve Spagnuolo on the back end of the season, but this defense has played the front end of the season. Like they normally play the back end of the season. And what I like about what they're doing, they're manning up on the outside cause they trust their front four to get pressure. Their linebackers are active in the passing game. So they're doing a great job, not only stopping a run, but their front end is also helping out the back end. And in some cases their back end is helping out the front end. So it's a great team defense. This office eventually we'll get it together, but I like the fact that they're leading from the front on that side of the football. That's been the biggest story and coming off that Germany trip and getting that by is going to be huge for this football team. Yeah, I'm right there with Emory. I think that as much as we're kind of ringing some alarm bells with the Kansas city chiefs, you know, the biggest alarm bells are about the offense and the passing game. They have Patrick Mahomes. He's going to be able to figure it out. I think where she rice is going to get better as this year goes on. So their wide receiver room should get better, especially when they go into this mini by where again, you just self self-evaluate self-assess, see what you do, right. And I think that what the tape's going to tell them is to play where she writes a little bit more. And that's only going to keep getting louder as the weeks go on. And the fact that they're able to play so well defensively, the fact that they're able to run the football to me is the makings of a team that can win in December and in January and they hope in February. So as big as we're saying, okay, yeah, well this office doesn't look great. It's still Patrick Mahomes. He's going to be able to find his guys as long as everybody stays healthy. We just saw the numbers right there. One in five matches, the worst start in Broncos franchise history. Also the worst start in Sean Payton's coaching history. It's not going great on that side of the ball, but maybe the most impressive, not maybe the most impressive number to come out of this game is 12, 12 and Oh, Patrick Mahomes against the Denver Broncos. You're talking about a divisional foe. You're talking about going there and doing it. You're talking about at home and doing it. We really need to try and quantify what we're watching right now in this head to head. Tyler, how do you make sense of 12 and 0 matching autogram for that longest streak ever against the single opponent? It is remarkable. You know, guys, I'm up here in new England. You know, I follow the Patriots for a long time during the Tom Brady days, and he was doing this throughout the AFC. He was doing this to the Buffalo bills. He was doing this to the dolphins, into the jets, and it was a nightmare for those teams. And this is exactly what Patrick Mahomes is able to do. I was, I was talking about it during this game where, you know, my homes has done this throughout his career. It feels like sometimes the Denver Broncos have them. There was one play in particular in the first half where both edge defenders were able to get a good jump off the snap. It looked like they were about to sack Patrick Mahomes. And what does he do? He scampers right under their nose for around a 10 yard touch, a 10 yard to move the chains for a first down. It's just those backbreaking moments that it feels like always happens with Patrick Mahomes against every opponent. But when it's against the division foe, we've had that much success. It feels like it happens every single play. Yeah, it's the whole Mike Tyson approach for the Denver Broncos coming in to face the Patrick Mahomes. You're thinking, Oh my God, this is the big fight. I got to make sure I do everything right. On the other side, you have Patrick Mahomes is being himself, playing calm, playing loose while you're playing tense and uptight. And when you're playing tense and uptight in a game that requires you to maintain focus, you tend to have those mental mistakes, those mental bustles, errors that you see out there on the field. So this is a great thing for Patrick Mahomes. I know people will say quarterback wins aren't a stat, but man, there's something to it. When you have one guy that just adds your number, like we've seen from Patrick Mahomes. Wasn't pretty, but it is a W, yet another one from a Mahomes that chiefs over the Broncos. So we are well into week six, gentlemen. Thank you as always. And here's a look. Oh, we got some matchups. Who's that guy? Oh, wow. Highlights and reaction this Sunday for Eastern. Join us for game day scoreboard. We have all the highlights at zeros, all the reaction you need. It's going to be a time. Our guy BMAC in studio, the two time champ breaking it down all Sunday long.