Chiefs dominate Broncos behind big night from Kenneth Walker
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The Kansas City Chiefs opened the season with a commanding victory over the Denver Broncos, anchored by a dominant ground game led by Kenneth Walker, who rushed for 220 yards and set franchise records in rushing efficiency. Their defensive transformation—featuring aggressive blitzes, man coverage, and standout plays from players like No. Williams and Chris Jones—was a clear sign of a reinvigorated team identity. However, the passing game faltered, with only 18.9% of passes thrown to the sticks and a negative EPA per dropback, making it one of the worst passing performances in recent memory. This stark contrast between a dominant run game and a weak passing attack highlights both the promise and the vulnerabilities of the Chiefs’ new offensive model. The Broncos, meanwhile, delivered one of their worst offensive performances of the season, with a 29.8% success rate, 14 successful plays in 47 attempts, and poor execution across offense and defense. Their inability to generate sustained plays, combined with turnovers and miscommunication, reflects deep instability in their coaching and play-calling—especially under new head coach Davis Webb. While the Chiefs’ early success signals optimism, the underperformance of their passing game raises serious questions about whether they can maintain a balanced, competitive offense throughout the season. The game serves as a strong indicator that while the Chiefs’ running game and defense are promising, the passing game must improve significantly to ensure long-term success.
Welcome to the athletic football show brought to you by the US bank smartly visa signature card. I'm Robert Mays week one. All of week one is in the books after a dominant Kansas city chiefs win over the Denver Broncos. We dove in to all of it. The Kenneth Walker of it all chiefs leaning into the ground game spags back in a big way. Really fun game from the chiefs defense. A lot of their new pieces. A vision of the chiefs that if you were excited about this team, a lot of it came to fruition. Not all perfect. We'll talk about the passing game lagging behind a little bit but not lagging nearly as much as the Denver Broncos in this game who lit an egg in a big way. But that potentially be most disappointing performance of week one. We dug into all of it with me, Dave and Derek. Let's get to that conversation right now. Got a lot to dig into as it relates to that game. I don't even know where to start. I think we have to start with the new look in new field Kansas city chiefs and it was a parrot immediately. Them coming out on the first drive and having a fourth and one, and they did it multiple times. Not only was Kyris Tonga in the backfield, they also had a sixth offensive lineman in the game. I don't even know what you would call that a personal grouping. The biggest one I could possibly imagine. And the fact that that's what they were doing on the first drive really set the tone for what we should come to expect from the Kansas city chiefs in this game. Four straight Kenneth Walker runs to open their season. One of them being on first down. I think my home's through twice on the entire drive, something like that. It was the ultimate FU. This is what we're going to do. Start to the season and we're a little more familiar with it on the other side of the ball. But starting with a double cornerback blitz on the first play of the game to Sack Bonix. And then Monsour DeLane basically running Cortland Sutton's route for him at the start of this thing. It was suffocating on defense. The statement was very clearly made on offense. It was really impressive is and we can talk about the Kenneth Walker game as a whole. That is and it's only week one. That is the most immediate and best return on investment to like anybody made this off season for them to like immediate. They ran for 220 yards. It's the third most in the Andy Reed era with the Kansas city chiefs. They were immediately the football team. They wanted to be 12.6 total rushing EPA on the day for the Broncos, which is this single most in a game during the next gen era, which goes back to 2015. The average 0.33 EPA per rush. Which is just for context. That's better than like Blomar Jackson and 24 throwing the ball. It was at like 0.27. This is like how you were getting it's MVP level plus dropback efficiency and what they did on the ground tonight. So this if I'm hearing you correctly, what the chiefs did to Denver tonight is worse than what Miami did to Denver in 2023. No, no, this is just for the chiefs. Oh, chiefs are running games going back to 2015. And I looked up totally because it's not EPA per carry. They've had better games just because they don't run the ball that often. If you have a game where you care the ball 15 times, you get 14 first downs because every run is on second and two. We got plenty of those chiefs games, but the volume combined with the efficiency truly stands alone in anything we have seen from the Kansas city chiefs offense in the past decade. I mean, Kenneth Walker matched the chiefs explosive play production. Not not exactly, but like he flirted with matching what they did last year for running backs. It's more 20 yard runs tonight than the chiefs had last season. More 20 yard runs and chiefs running backs only had like 10 designed runs of 12 plus yards all last year. I don't know what he finished with, but pretty damn close to their season tally from the entire year. And it was in the way that like you were told that Kenneth Walker would get them. There are some explosive run games like the Bears, for example. It's not necessarily the running back making the offense, right? It's like this was blocked to perfection. Guys are making blocks downfield as a wider seer. For a lot of the Kenneth Walker ones, it was him making them right. Like the third or fourth and one that he I think they're running duo to the left and he just bounces it and makes Riley Moss miss. That's like, can you even imagine any of the chiefs running backs last year trying to that play was dead to rights and and like change the complexion of the second half as well because it's 14 seven. If they don't get it, the Broncos get the ball in plus territory in a seven point game. The mid it was not happening in the middle of that play like Denver mall the Kansas City on that particular play and Riley Moss was there when he bounced it and he just said no thanks like that's what that is what you day dream about when you sign that contract like this is why we're doing it and he delivered it to you in a clutch moment in week one. We had high truly like blockbuster moves by both of these teams in the offseason to upgrade and change the complexion of their offenses. The chief signed Kenneth Walker the the Broncos traded for jail at a lot. That that actually stings even more you had to like trade capital to get him and he'll probably have a fine season, but the fact that he was like non-existent today. Don't sugar. Kenneth Walker was the best player on the field. That's pretty insane. You know what I hate? I mean, he got three targets on the night, which is absolutely ridiculous. I and I know Sean Payton's not calling the place. We can get to that in a minute, even if he's not. I don't know. Like you can't just let the chiefs take Jalen Waddle away. Like if if your Sean Payton is one of the best play callers of recent NFL history and if Davis Webb is good enough to take the play calling duties away from Sean Payton, you can't let them just take Jalen Waddle away. And then on top of that when he did finally get a nice look on a key third down when this was still a game, he dropped the ball. Just I'm really in my feelings about Jalen Waddle's Denver debut. I didn't mean to speed run us to the Broncos offense conversation. We can save that for a little bit later. I want to sit in the chiefs for a little bit longer. Obviously the run game, everything you could have wanted it to be, the fact that they leaned down at the way that they did. I mean, everything we projected about what the offense might try to be in terms of their identity, this offseason. They leaned into every element of that over the course of this game. If you were trying to build a case for why you should be excited about this specific version of the chiefs, it started with them being more of a run first team and at the very least more explosive team on the ground. Check, check. The other part of it was we have a little bit of an injection of youth and juice on defense. What is that going to mean for this team? It's unfortunate that Mansor Delayed came out after the first drive, but he played one drive and had an interception. Then you look at what the defense in the secondary and the front looked like compared to what it looked like last year. I remember Derek. We talked about this at some point last season when we were just really ruminating on how the chiefs felt different than they felt when they were at their best. The offense obviously is the starting point for that conversation. We can talk about the passing game here in a second. But the other element of that was when they were blitzing on defense. It just didn't have the teeth that were so used to them having when they're sending extra bodies at the quarterback in this game today. 30.3 percent blitz rate. Bonyx finishes two of nine for 13 yards against the blitz. He was pressured on 45 and a half percent of his dropbacks per next gen. Right. Two of 10 for five yards when pressured in this game. Bonyx was that's disgusting. We'll talk about the Broncos culpability in that the chiefs defense deserves a lot of credit. And I really liked the version of the chiefs defense that we saw, especially when they were at full strength when Delayne was in there. This was a team and at trademark honors hurt today, but I don't imagine. I'm not sure how much she'll be in their plans anyway. Them playing when they were in their dime look, they had four corners on the field. Sneed. Chris Roland Wallace who's is a slot corner. Delayne and No Williams. And then they had two safeties in one linebacker. And they're going to play and can play decent amount of man coverage in those looks. That version of the chiefs defense, that's the one I wanted to see. And we got a really fun glimpse at that tonight. You got a bunch of the man cover stuff like there was a play at the end that No Williams makes in the game was already kind of out of hand, but like he makes a great play on Troy Franklin. The interception that Delayne gets like he's just one on one with his guy like the fact that that's the thing like the dream for what the defense was going to look like is spags, can blitz again, and they can play man-to-man coverage with they want to. And I think you saw literally on the first try of the fact that they've mentioned it. I think he calls a double corner blitz on the first play of the game first play. I was like, oh, spags is back. We're back. And like, so you get what felt like spags calling a defense the way that he wanted to call it. Because I think the last couple of years, they'd become more of a like zone based defense. And they were good at the at that at first. And then just a couple of things fell away. Some guys get older. Some of the corners start to fall away. It doesn't feel like their defense anymore. Now they're playing kind of like they did earlier in the spags era where it was more like blitz and man coverage. But now they have the talent to do it. And I thought up front. Their front four actually looks really good. Like Chris Jones was good. Karloff just had, I think, three pressures in this game. Armies and Thomas had a couple of nice plays inside when he had. Yeah, great play. And you even got a you had a play. Yeah. On one of the bonics, I think the formal. Yeah, the formal strip sack. He like, again, I think he beats through the center. And then he's able to go, uh, Chris Jones comes and cleans it up. And it's like, if everybody's making plays on this defense, it's such a dynastic thing. Like, it reminds me of of the Patriots back in the day that Lazarus need went to the wilderness for a couple of years just in a
abysmal time in Tennessee, and he's back here in the lineup. And I like, if I didn't know what's been going on with him, I would just assume he'd been there the whole time. Well, I think moving him inside is actually, it makes a lot of sense. That's what he did to be getting into his career. He was a sock runner early on. And now that he's, I mean, physically he's just diminished compared to what he was. And that knee is obviously a huge issue and was in Tennessee. So putting him inside and asking him to do just a little bit less than you would have when he was at his best. I think it actually makes a ton of sense. He might be diminished, but him and then, and we were high on Noel Williams in the summer. But like, they just brought a physicality to the game. Like, and you could just feel them when they made contact with Broncos players with them. No Williams is one of those guys that I was so excited to see how he would play this year. And the returns were immediate, immediate. What he's doing is to run the physicality he's bringing just across the board, extremely impressed with what that element of the chief's defense looked like. And this is the formula. It is, can we run the ball? Can we play really good defense? Can we be that sort of team in a way that we've never really tried to be before? And unfortunately, and we do have to talk about this. You're going to have to be that sort of team if the passing game looks the way that it did in this game. Because for as good as the running game looked, we were ahead of spot at half time where I want, I want to get the actual numbers down because I'm curious about them. At half time in this game, the homes was eight of 18 for 62 yards, 4.5 air yards per attempt. We were looking it up at half time. As we were talking, he had not completed a pass beyond the sticks in the first half of this game. So for as good as the running game was for as exciting as the defense was for Kansas City, the passing game for the most part was still pretty DOA. And I leave this game still worried about that moving forward. I am as well. Like that was one where I was like, it's funny too, because if you told me Kenneth Walker had the game he had, I would have thought the passing game would have looked better. Because it was like my idea with the offense was like, well, if Kenneth Walker can do this, teams are going to play them a little bit differently up front. Maybe that happens over the course of the season. But I was like, well, the passing game will have a little bit more room to breathe. And they just, they just didn't look like they had anything like there was basically the one where she writes. They threw like a screen to him. And that kind of worked. And other than that, they really weren't able to connect on that many. Are you talking about the touchdown? Yeah. Which I mean, don't get me wrong. It absolutely worked. But I was going to say the biggest pops of the bra, of the night for the chiefs were horrendous defensive plays by tenor. The Calsy play Calsy plays just. Oh, that one. Why would he give them one when they haven't been able to move the ball throwing at the entire game? I would have bet my life that you could just sit back and make my homes keep doing that to you. And it's probably going to work out. Okay, Basin. What we saw like when they, when that happened, I don't Denver sent at least six guys on that play. I was like, ooh, this feels really aggressive for how much the chiefs have shown passing. And sure enough, I mean, it's a first down on third and sixth regardless. And then awful tackling turns it into a 59 yard gain. I did not understand the logic there by Vance Joseph whatsoever. 15, those 59 yards were half of their receiving production in the second half of this game. You're going to look at the numbers. My homes are seven of nine for one, 22 in the second half. And thank God, that looks pretty good. Half of them came on that broken play to Calsy. And so the passing game overall, I still think there is a lot to be desired about what this thing is going to look like to go back to the rice plan. I mean, he, Jonah Ellis and Riley Moss had him dead to rights and had the 10 yard line on a, on a ball that he caught at the 12th. And he scores on that. And this, that's the other way. We don't, we can keep it on the chiefs. But like, if I'm a Denver fan and don't get me wrong, I'm well aware how bad the offense was. But we saw this last year where you had nights, maybe you didn't have many nights where that were this bad. The Jets game, the Jets, the leaders, I remember there were a couple, but the point being this was worse. This was worse than those games, by the way, the overarching point is like the offense has always been a little bit of a roller coaster. The defense is the stabilizing force. And the defense was bad. The defense was horrendous tonight. The Broncos had an explosive play ray last year of 7.7%. Best in the league, only behind Seattle. When I looked this up and there, there was still game to play because this became a game where I could start working on my notes ahead of time. When I looked this up late in the game, that they had given up an explosive play rate of 12.7%. So getting close to without a team that can throw the ball, without a team that can throw the ball. Explosive on the ground through the air. And that's the thing. I, this receiving core, I mean, I already probably felt this way going to the season. They can't do anything. I know. They cannot do any like the fact that Rishi Rice bounces off a guy that that's cool when the rest of the passing offense kind of works. And he's like a second or third option. The fact that he might be their best pass catcher now is worrisome. Xavier were the, I thought like all the targets to him were borderline useless. Like I, I just don't know what they even do with him at this point. And like Taikwan Thornton is kind of just a deep ball guy. Like I really don't know how they fixed the receiving core. Like they've kind of made their bed. It's kind of crazy that the best version of the running game that you could have imagined. And the worst version of the passing game that you could have imagined. Like they existed at the same time in this game. Like every bit of enthusiasm or optimism you would have had about the chiefs coming into the season for all the Kenneth Walker stuff. And every bit of pessimism and fear you would have about the passing game existed simultaneously in this game. It's honestly really fitting because when we've talked about the chiefs in the summer, it's will it be enough? Yes, the running game is going to be more explosive. Yes, we trust that to be true. Will it be enough? Well, it was enough here. Some of that is because Denver kind of imploded, but I think it could be enough in a lot of the games that chiefs play, but I disagree with that. You have to be better throwing the ball against an offense that is functional. If you're going to continue to win football games, that's better than they were tonight. Like I, that's not it. I think a sociable point. I am baking in the idea that it will be better than what this was. But it does have to. It has to be. It has to be. You can't win this exact game that many times. I will put a number on that, and we will use that as a way to get into the Broncos conversation in this game. The Kansas City chiefs through 18 and a half percent of their passes to the sticks. Okay. That is an untenable number. The team right ahead of them that it was 20 that finished 29th this weekend was a 29%. The league average was 39%. The chiefs were at 18 and a half percent. Here's where it gets very fun. There were two teams that finished below the chiefs and the percentage of their throws to the sticks in week one. One of them was the Cooper Rush Falcons. They finished at 18.2% negative six average area arts to the sticks. My favorite number here 104% of the Falcons receiving yardage came behind yak because they kept throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage. That's all really gross. Guess who was worse? Probably the guy who just played. It was a Denver? No, that not by those numbers exactly, but overall is a quality passing offense. The Denver Broncos today pernection, the Falcons were a negative 0.41 EPA per play. Overall in offense, the Broncos were a negative 0.45. So they were worse. They had a 29.8. They had a 29.8% success rate that Broncos did tonight, which was the worst of the entire of all of week one. They had 14 successful plays in the game. 14. Double that might not be good enough to win a football game. That's 14. The Broncos, the Rams in the disaster class that the Rams put on had 24. Exactly. That's one. That's almost double. And that was not close enough to get the Rams in the game. They had 24. I said the Falcons. Do you know how many plays the Broncos run? 47, 14 successful plays on 47 plays. They had two explosive plays talked about this earlier today. The only other every other team in the league except for the Titans had at least four in week one negative 0.57 EPA per dropback for the Broncos in this game. They threw the ball 70% of the time. They averaged 3.6 yards per pass. The Falcons were at 4.5. It's real gross. This is like every single fear you could have had about this offer. And honestly, the thing is like the no, no, no, no, the whole team. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes. This is like the everything the Broncos did tonight. It was like a worst case scenario for if you were a Broncos fan with anxiety heading into the season between the offense no showing again, the defense playing far below it's standard. And we can get into this in a minute. Like your early return on play calling and the whole transition from Sean Peyton to Davis Web. There's no way you feel good about that right now. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. I don't think we came down on some other teams last night that hard that look bad in week one. It was a lot of new staffs, new play callers, new situations, week one. I think you can explain away a lot of stuff in week one for teams that are starting over again. We mentioned it again last night. You think about what the jags are things early last season with the brought with the bears look like early last season. Sometimes these things can take a little while for you to settle into being the team that you want to. Should that be the case in year four? Not in year four. And like, and we, you could probably, we could say this about the Rams and we were pretty harsh about the Rams. You can make a case that the Broncos have the best roster in football or at least one of the top like three or four. And the fact that they came out this flat immediately. That's hard for me to do. I think the Rams definitively have a better roster than the The Broncos are more complete. That might be the best Austrian AFC. I think that's all I'm sure.
I think if we remove the quarterback, it makes it a little bit easier to make the case for the Broncos. I don't know. Maybe. I think, well, what's fun? I think this is worse when Harry's here with you, but all the shit that makes you feel good about the Broncos roster looked bad tonight. I was going to say nobody looked good. If there's a single player that looked good, right? Also, the Rams flew to Australia. Yeah. The Broncos flew to Kansas City. Yes. It's a 90 minute flight. I think I'm going to give the Rams a little bit more. Clearly, they're all the time. It was really human, guys. It was really human against a city guard. If I get like, this is, this is the most copium ever, and I, but I just have to lean into it because I'm invested in the Broncos. So obviously, it's something I don't feel good about right now. But the amount of weird shit that happened in this game, I assume because of the humidity, I'm at least filing it away in the back of my mind. Keep in mind, Creed Humphrey put two snaps on the ground in this game. So like, it affected both teams. Oh, man. There's a story here. Bonyx had two balls slip out of his hands, like, unprompted. The numbers they had in this game, it should be the result of a monsoon. It should be that Dolphin Steelers game from Monday night football in like 2006 or whatever game. The ball should stick in the ground when it hits it for you to have the numbers that the Broncos had on offense today. As humidity be damned. Askichi Roshazuki about Kansas City in August. Okay. And that's all I'm saying. You make a good point though that nobody looked good. It's like, it's a shit point, but it's all I have right now, but like I do, when that many players struggle with the football on the same night, it does make me wonder, it's not a good enough excuse for the performance, the Broncos, but it's not even the beginning of the start of infraction of a good enough excuse for the performance the Broncos had tonight. And because some of it, some of the, these guys looking bad was not just the ball handling. So like the Broncos offensive line just did not look as good as they typically do. The bonix, the late third quarter strip sack. I think it's the one where Felix on the decay, Uzama gets their first. They look like they're going to pressure. And then they drop out and they drop all of their guys to the offense is running and then her has like a screen to that side. It was a three down line. Been looking. Yeah. It was a funky look up front. And Nick sees them drop out to like where the screen is going and just freaks out and doesn't throw it and holds the ball and he gets strip sack. It was stuff like that like RJ Harvey late in the game almost got bonix strip sack again because but Nick Bolton came firing on a, on a blitz and almost got there. Like got his hand on it and we were debating whether or not that was a fumble. It was just stuff like that all game like Troy Franklin the only time that he gets open to see, he's having to throw a guy off and get off into past interference. Waddle dropped to pass that you mentioned like, it just didn't feel like any of the Broncos players played well, except like Evan Ingram caught that touch down on the first or second drive. It was a really cool battle and the backfields. We had that was good. We're like, Oh man, Davis Web is cooking and it lasted a drive. Well, let's bring up like the, well, there are so many bad sequences here, but with everything that we just said, and even after the Kenneth Walker explosive touched out, it's 21 seven, it was still there to be a football game. Jalen Waddle drops third down as you're driving to try to tie. And even then it could still be a football game because of whatever the hell the miscommunication was between the homes and Xavier worthy. It looked like leads to an interception return that puts you on the plus five with a chance to make it 21 14 that drive when negative eight yards over four plays, Pat Bryant draws a holding call that bumps you back to the 15, Bo Nick's does the Aaron Brooks, just lost the football out of the back of his hand, back it up even further. And then you have no, it was, it was very human, Robert. Thank you for reminding everybody at home. And then you kick a field goal to keep it a two score game. Like that was such an abysmal sequence. You have young players getting penalties, you have inexcusable turnover issues, you blame the play calling if you want to. Did you see it? Where did you see Sean Payton's quote at halftime about playing along, by the way? Oh, that was good. Or a relative asked him about like, how's it feel, not calling plays? And he said, ask me in another half, which is after that. Or the bottom drop out of the same answer now probably is a lot worse than what it would have been. I'm nervous about that. If I'm being honest, how can you not be? I mean, just the dynamics were, they were already complicated with that handoff occurring. Now, when you have this sort of performance in week one, and again, if it was mediocre, whatever, the idea that you're passing offense was less functional than the Cooper Rush Falcons yesterday is a really rough place to start. They played it rough. They played a game that like we might get to the end of the season, and this will be like the worst passing game of the season. Like it's, that isn't entirely possible. This is not beaten at any point. And the other thing, it's a small thing. But I mentioned this before, we actually went on to the show. The hand, them handing off the play calling thing was already kind of weird enough. Doing it in the year where you have to figure out if you want to pay the quarterback is like an extra layer of weird. I love that you think that they're thinking about the quarterback, I mean, they shouldn't be thinking about paying the quarterback if it was me, but, but that to me almost feels like a done deal based on what he's done and how they taught them. If he's going to keep doing that, I don't, it's not my money. I'm going to make it into six. They have one more money. They've got enough of it to throw around. I hear you, but we thought Stroud's deal was done way ahead of time too. Like, I mean, if this, this was the team that came an unfortunate ankle break away from at least being in the Super Bowl. And like if this, we're getting ahead of ourselves because I'm not, we don't need to litigate Bonyx contract stuff. But I'll say, like, if this season is like a disaster, it changes all the conversations about Bonyx. That is so far down the line, I'm really not, I'm like sitting on the edge of panicking, but I'm going to not panic for the time being. I think because it's a stat, even with a new play collar, it is a staff overall with extreme continuity on both sides of the ball. It's not the Davis Web was here. And even if we're, I mean, obviously the staff turned over like Joe Lombardi is no longer there. And so the people that in charge of the game planning process and all of that, like there are shifts in how that's happened. I don't want to minimize that. But I think when you consider the defense carrying over, Vince Joseph's obviously been there. There's defense been one of the best in the league. Sean Payton even is not calling plays him and Davis Web have still been very central to how the process has gone offensively for the Broncos. When you consider all of that and you look at the product on the field, I think it's pretty clearly the most concerning performance from week one. I'm willing to give the Rams a little bit of the benefit of the doubt considering they flew halfway around the world to play that game. I was actually thinking about that right before we went on because of the four finalists from last year, three had just outright terrible week ones and that's the Seahawks obviously. They weren't terrible. They lost their quarterback for a yet to be determined amount of time. It seems like it's going to be a short amount of time. I come away from that game being very, feeling very good about Seattle because that's one of those games that like you should lose and they were just like a **** you. Don't misunderstand me. I feel great about the Seahawks overall, but it is funny that like the one of the four teams that got the win, doesn't have their quarterback. It was for the time being. Yeah. It was a very weird week for yeah, it was a weird week as the elite of the elite and it's interesting that you say that because like, okay, Rams, I'm right off the top of my head. Rams Broncos, I'll throw the Cowboys in there for sure. Patriots, like who else is in the conversation for like, those are probably the three teams. And I think I mean, chargers was chargers was that was again, they probably weren't that level, but still new office staff and yeah, like I know it's a new play collar in Denver, but the head coach that was the play collar, like there's still enough continuity with people who were in the building that I feel less inclined to give them the grace that I would give other people in this process. Denver and New England and I like both had of awful, awful first weeks and losing AJ Brown for, I mean, at least a month if not more is pretty tough, but like in terms of the actual performance because New England was driving to win that game at the end of the day, even after all the balls. Exactly. Yes. Denver. This performance. Yeah, I think you're right. I had to, I had to work my way through it, but I think you're right. Tough look on both sides of the ball, tough start on both sides of off with Broncos. I don't think I said that they threw 17.9% of their passes to the sticks in this game. Oh, yeah, you were talking, but you were dancing around with the cheese, but 17.9 is crazy. They did last 17.9% and a lot of that, some of that is by design, but like also I, and I don't remember the number, but I looked up last year and I was talking about Bonix. He, when he gets pressured, does not throw at the sticks and he was pressured a lot in this game and you just got, I mean, you brought up the stats earlier. He was pressured a lot in this game and just didn't. He's just a quarterback who it's going to be checked down, scramble or not something at the sticks. Sean Peyton, a track he's been said during the game that Sean Peyton told his wife to drafts jail and won on fantasy football this year. Wonder what that conversation is going to look like when he gets home. Probably not as bad as the conversation he's going to have with Davis Webb over the next couple days. I'm having read the story from the playoffs about what Sean Peyton's game planning meetings are like that, that feels like it's going to be a long talk. Broncos staff is going to be spending 18 hours a day at the facility from here on out through the rest of the season. It's going to be real fun for everybody. All right. We've got with our Monday night recap from
week one, the Monday hangover is going to be available in your podcast feeds as you were listening to this. If you're listening to it on the podcast feed, obviously all the Monday and Thursday recaps will be available in audio form throughout this season. It's the first time that we're doing this. But same schedule that we've always had on top of that, they won't replace the daily shows that are coming. So the hangover is in your podcast feed right now. If you're watching this on YouTube after noon central on Tuesday, you can also check out the hangover on YouTube. If you are watching this on YouTube, if you are new to the channel, we would encourage you to like and subscribe. Got a lot of new people that have joined us over the last month or so. Very excited about that, excited to keep things rolling. We have multiple video specific video first franchises that will be on the YouTube channel this year. I did you notice series is back Derek is back with how it happened and Dave is joining the fray this year for the first time. When's that coming out? I recorded it tonight. It's called that rocked. It's basically just going to be me spotlighting under the radar performances that I really enjoyed. I honestly don't know when it airs, but probably soon if I recorded it tonight. That rocked fitting for the Dave Helmen brand. That's right. All right. That is all we've got for today. I appreciate you guys joining us.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The Kansas City Chiefs delivered a dominant performance in Week 1, showcasing an explosive ground game led by Kenneth Walker, who rushed for 220 yards and 12.6 total rushing EPA—among the best in franchise history.
The Chiefs' defense, particularly in man coverage and blitz packages, returned to form with strong pressure, interceptions, and physicality, exemplifying a revitalized defensive identity under new schemes and youth.
Despite the success on the ground and defense, the Chiefs’ passing game struggled significantly, with only 18.9% of passes thrown to the sticks, 14 successful plays, and a negative 0.45 EPA per play, indicating a major flaw in offensive execution that raises concerns about long-term viability.
Summary:
The Kansas City Chiefs opened the season with a commanding victory over the Denver Broncos, anchored by a dominant ground game led by Kenneth Walker, who rushed for 220 yards and set franchise records in rushing efficiency. Their defensive transformation—featuring aggressive blitzes, man coverage, and standout plays from players like No. Williams and Chris Jones—was a clear sign of a reinvigorated team identity.
9% of passes thrown to the sticks and a negative EPA per dropback, making it one of the worst passing performances in recent memory. This stark contrast between a dominant run game and a weak passing attack highlights both the promise and the vulnerabilities of the Chiefs’ new offensive model. 8% success rate, 14 successful plays in 47 attempts, and poor execution across offense and defense.
Their inability to generate sustained plays, combined with turnovers and miscommunication, reflects deep instability in their coaching and play-calling—especially under new head coach Davis Webb. While the Chiefs’ early success signals optimism, the underperformance of their passing game raises serious questions about whether they can maintain a balanced, competitive offense throughout the season. The game serves as a strong indicator that while the Chiefs’ running game and defense are promising, the passing game must improve significantly to ensure long-term success.
FAQs
The Chiefs' explosive run game, led by Kenneth Walker, was the cornerstone of their success, with Walker rushing for 220 yards and creating multiple explosive plays that overwhelmed the Broncos' defense.
Kenneth Walker had a breakout performance, rushing for 220 yards on four straight drives to open the game, including a key fourth-and-one run that shifted momentum and set the tone for the Chiefs' dominant offensive campaign.
The Chiefs' defense showcased a return to form with aggressive blitzing, man-to-man coverage, and strong pressure, including a 30.3% blitz rate and a standout interception by Mansour DeLaRose, demonstrating improved defensive cohesion and scheme execution.
The Chiefs' running game in Week 1 was the most efficient in the modern era (since 2015), with a 12.6 total rushing EPA and the highest single-game efficiency, surpassing even the best performances of past years in terms of volume and effectiveness.
The Broncos struggled with their passing game, throwing just 14 successful plays on 47 attempts, with a 29.8% success rate and a negative 0.45 EPA per dropback, making it one of the worst offensive performances of the season in Week 1.
The Chiefs' passing game was underdeveloped and inconsistent, with only a few short connections, and the offense relied heavily on the ground game, which limited their overall offensive balance and effectiveness.
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