Broncos at Chiefs: The No Bull Review

The Denver Broncos made a game out of it with their season over and nothing but pride to play for. My thoughts, analysis, and opinions on yet another loss by the Broncos.

I was honestly pleasantly surprised with our team this week. I expected a complete blowout and got an entertaining game that came down to the wire.

The more these losing seasons stack up, the less valuable any talk about moral victories is. That being said, it was good to see the players having a lot of fight left in them. I see that as them feeling like something better is possible after finally getting rid of a coach that wasn’t getting them anywhere good.

That being said, the No Bull truth is that they lost the game and that sucks.

Offense

I honestly loved what the team did on offense in this game. They used motion liberally, ran the ball effectively, and even worked in some read/option wrinkles to keep the defense on their heels.

It was what this offense needed to look like with Russell Wilson at the helm all season long. Too bad it took getting the head coach fired with two meaningless games to go before the Broncos finally got there.

Russell Wilson played well. I liked seeing his killer instinct on his two touchdown runs. He’s got the fire for that kind of play still. Hopefully, he’ll also have more of the body for it next season.

Our running backs and the offensive line should get some credit for their effort in this game. They constantly churned out positive run plays which is a big key for winning with a quarterback like Wilson behind center. I don’t know if either back will be with us next season, but I wouldn’t be shy at all about bringing back Latavius Murray as our #2 back in 2023.

It was nice to see Albert Okwuegbunam making plays again. My eyes tell me that he’s a receiving threat as a TE and wasn’t on the field much this season due to some issue with the coaches that we’ve not heard much about.

Defense

Where our injuries showed up most in this game was on our defense. We had very little effective pass rush in this game (normal against the Kansas City Chiefs… they may not have the best offensive line, but Mahomes is very, VERY cagey and a great passer against the blitz).

Pair that with a depleted secondary and you have the only player-based reason the Chiefs even won the game. We’re working with our #4 and #5 options at corner and safety in spots and those talent differentials led to really good plays for the Chiefs. I’m not even going to name the guys because it isn’t fair to them in my mind. They are developing players trying to make it in the NFL and to their credit, they played their tails off. It may not have been enough, but they largely were in the right position (with all due credit to excellent defensive coaching from Evero and his staff).

Any day that your defense holds the Chiefs to under 3 ypc and keeps Travis Kelce under 50 yards of offense with 0 TDs is a win on defense.

Special Teams

The special teams unit looked very solid in this game (for a change). I still think our punter could be better, but outside of that we were sound on coverage and didn’t have many misfires on returns.

Big shout out to Eyioma Uwazurike for his blocked FG at the end of the second quarter. That was great timing and execution by the young defensive lineman.

Final Thoughts

This game honestly doesn’t mean much for our team at all. It just doesn’t move the needle for having any serious impact (and if you as a fan disagree, that’s fine, just understand my standards for this team are much higher than yours).

That being said, it was pretty maddening to see the refs helping out Kansas City so blatantly and honestly pathetic that the Cheifs needed that much help to win against a supposed trash team like the Denver Broncos (which speaks to the quality of the roster honestly). There were not one, not two, but three impactful ref gaffes that I noted:

1. A defenseless receiver hit on Kendal Hinton on an out route that wasn’t caught. It was a blatant hit while he went for the ball.
2. The OPI call on Courtland Sutton was completely bogus. The arm swipe that Sutton did is something you see on at least 50% of all NFL passes each week. It did not move the defender and was just normal arm-fighting. There was no DPI either…the players involved were all trying to make a play and it was a catch.
3. The no-call on roughing the passer in the Broncos’ final drive by Chris Jones. He flung Russell Wilson sideways into the ground which isn’t legal (and Jones was flagged for in a different game actually).

It is encouraging to see the team rally and fight hard at the end of another tragic season. Our hopes are now turning to the team finally getting a legitimate coach who will right the ship and gets us back into some semblance of winning football again.