Chiefs dominate Broncos behind big night from Kenneth Walker
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
32 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 15, 2026
Published
Tue, September 15, 2026
13
Player insights
10
Players mentioned
Topics
Bo NixPatrick MahomesXavier WorthyA.J. BrownEvan EngramJaylen WaddleJerry JeudyKenneth Walker IIIRashee RiceTroy Franklin
Player analysis
Player insights
A.J. Brown
NegativeInjury47:10
A.J. Brown is expected to be sidelined for at least a month, which is a significant blow to his team's performance.
Insight pageBo Nix
NegativeProjection12:01
Bo Nix struggled significantly against the Chiefs' defense, finishing 2 of 9 for 13 yards against the blitz and 2 of 10 for 5 yards when pressured. The Broncos' offense under his leadership managed only 14 successful plays on 47 total snaps, resulting in a negative 0.57 EPA per dropback.
Insight pageNegativeUsage35:08
Bo Nix struggled significantly under pressure, with a tendency to check down or scramble rather than throwing to the sticks; he recorded a 17.9% rate of passes to the sticks, which ranked dead last in the league for Week 1.
Insight pageEvan Engram
PositiveUsage37:37
Evan Engram was one of the few players who performed well for the Broncos, catching a touchdown on one of the team's early drives.
Insight pageJaylen Waddle
NegativeUsage38:42
Jalen Waddle had a costly drop on a third down during a drive to tie the game, contributing to the team's offensive struggles.
Insight pageJerry Jeudy
NegativeBust8:16
Jerry Jeudy was essentially non-existent in his Denver debut, which the source highlights as particularly stinging given the trade capital invested to acquire him. He finished with three targets and dropped a key third-down pass when the game was still competitive.
Insight pageKenneth Walker III
PositiveUsage2:05
Kenneth Walker was the focal point of the Chiefs' offense, opening the season with four straight runs and finishing with 220 rushing yards. His performance provided immediate return on investment, showcasing explosive play ability that the Chiefs' backfield lacked last season; he recorded more 20-yard runs in this single game than the entire Chiefs running back room managed in the previous year.
Insight pagePatrick Mahomes
NegativeProjection18:47
The Chiefs' passing game under Patrick Mahomes was largely ineffective, with Mahomes completing only 8 of 18 passes for 62 yards in the first half and failing to complete a single pass beyond the sticks. Despite a second-half surge, the source remains worried about the passing offense's viability, noting that 18.5% of their passes were to the sticks, an untenable number compared to the league average of 39%.
Insight pageNegativeUsage38:50
Patrick Mahomes was involved in a miscommunication with Xavier Worthy that led to an interception, though the team still had opportunities to score.
Insight pageRashee Rice
NegativeUsage20:52
Rashee Rice appears to be the primary pass catcher for the Chiefs, but the source expresses concern that he is forced into this role because the rest of the receiving corps is unable to contribute. While he showed playmaking ability by bouncing off a tackle for a touchdown, his status as the team's best option is viewed as a symptom of a flawed passing offense.
Insight pageTroy Franklin
NegativeMatchup13:38
Troy Franklin was effectively neutralized by the Chiefs' secondary, specifically noting a play where Noel Williams made a great defensive stop against him late in the game.
Insight pageXavier Worthy
NegativeUsage25:15
Xavier Worthy's involvement in the Chiefs' passing game was ineffective, with the source describing his targets as 'borderline useless' and questioning how the team plans to utilize him effectively within the current offensive structure.
Insight pageNegativeUsage38:50
Xavier Worthy was involved in a miscommunication with Patrick Mahomes that resulted in an interception, stalling a potential scoring drive.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Welcome to The Athletic Football Show brought to you by the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card.
0:05I'm Robert Mays. Week one, all of week one is in the books after a dominant Kansas City Chiefs win over the Denver Broncos.
0:12We dove into all of it. Kenneth Walker of it all, Chiefs leaning into the ground game, Spags back in a big way.
0:19Really fun game from the Chiefs defense. A lot of their new pieces.
0:23A vision of the Chiefs that if you were excited about this team, a lot of it came to fruition.
0:29Not all perfect. We'll talk about the passing game lagging behind a little bit, but not lagging nearly as much as the
0:35Denver Broncos in this game who laid an egg in a big way.
0:39Potentially the most disappointing performance of week one. We dug into all of it with me, Dave and Derek.
0:45Let's get to that conversation right now. We've got a lot to dig into as it relates to that game.
0:50I don't even know where to start. I think we have to start with the new look and new feel Kansas City Chiefs.
0:57And it was apparent immediately. Them coming out on the first drive and having a fourth and one, and they did it multiple times.
1:04Not only was Kairos Tonga in the backfield, they also had a sixth offensive lineman in the game.
1:10I don't even know what you would call that a personnel grouping.
1:13The biggest one I could possibly imagine. And the fact that that's what they were doing on the first drive really set
1:20the tone for what we should come to expect from the Kansas City Chiefs in this game.
1:25Four straight Kenneth Walker runs to open their season, one of them being on first down.
1:29I think Mahomes threw twice on the entire drive, something like that.
1:33And it was the ultimate FU, this is what we're going to do start to the season.
1:38And we're a little more familiar with it on the other side of the ball, but starting with a double cornerback blitz
1:44on the first play of the game to sack Bo Nix, and then Mansoor Delane basically running Cortland Sutton's route for him at the start of this thing.
1:53It was suffocating on defense. The statement was very clearly made on offense.
1:57It was really impressive. And we can talk about the Kenneth Walker game as a whole.
2:01That is, and it's only week one, that is the most immediate and best return on investment that like anybody made this offseason.
2:08For them to like immediate, they ran for 220 yards.
2:11It's the third most in the Andy Reid era with the Kansas City Chiefs.
2:15They were immediately the football team they wanted to be.
2:1812.6 total rushing EPA on the day for the Broncos, which is the single most in a game during the next gen era, which goes back to 2015.
2:26They averaged 0.33 EPA per rush. Holy shit. Which is, just for context, that's better than like Lamar Jackson in 24 throwing the ball.
2:33It was like 0.27. Yeah, this is like the value we were getting.
2:37It's MVP level plus dropback efficiency in what they did on the ground tonight.
2:41So this, if I'm hearing you correctly, what the Chiefs did to Denver tonight is worse than what Miami did to Denver in 2023?
2:48No, no, no. This is just for the Chiefs.
2:51Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. The Chiefs running games going back to 2015.
2:55And I looked up total EPA because it's not, eat, pay, pay, carry.
2:59They've had better games just because they don't run the ball that often.
3:02If you have a game where you carry the ball 15 times, you get 14 first downs because every run is on second and two.
3:10We got plenty of those Chiefs games. But the volume combined with the efficiency truly stands alone in anything we have seen
3:16from the Kansas City Chiefs offense in the past decade.
3:19I mean, Kenneth Walker matched the Chiefs explosive play production.
3:22Not exactly. But like he flirted with matching what they did last year for running backs.
3:27He had more 20-yard runs tonight than the Chiefs had last season.
3:30More 20-yard runs and Chiefs running backs only had like 10 designed runs of 12-plus yards all last year.
3:36I don't know what he finished with, but pretty damn close to their season tally from the entire year.
3:42And it was in the way that like you were told that Kenneth Walker would get them.
3:47There are some explosive run games like the Bears, for example.
3:50It's not necessarily the running back making the offense right.
3:53It's like this was blocked to perfection. Guys are making blocks downfield as a wide receiver.
3:58For a lot of the Kenneth Walker ones, it was him making them right.
4:02Like 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.
4:10That's like, can you even imagine any of the Chiefs running backs last year trying that?
4:14That play was dead to rights. And like changed the complexion of the second half as well.
4:19Because it's 14-7. If they don't get it, the Broncos get the ball in plus territory in a seven-point game.
4:25It was not happening in the middle of that play.
4:28Like Denver mauled Kansas City on that particular play.
4:31And Riley Moss was there when he bounced it.
4:34And he just said, no thanks. Like that's what, that is what you daydream about when you sign that contract.
4:39Like this is why we're doing it. And he delivered it to you in a clutch moment in week one.
4:45We had high, truly like blockbuster moves by both of these teams in the offseason to upgrade and change the complexion of their offenses.
4:52The Chiefs signed Kenneth Walker. The Broncos traded for Jerry Jeudy.
4:56Oh. That actually stings even more. You had to like trade capital to get him.
5:00And he'll probably have a fine season. But the fact that he was like non-existent today.
5:05Don't sugarcoat it for me. And Kenneth Walker was the best player on the field.
5:09That's pretty insane. You know what I hate? I mean, he got three targets on the night, which is absolutely ridiculous.
5:15And I know Sean Payton's not calling the plays.
5:18We can get to that in a minute. Even if he's not, I don't know.
5:22Like you can't just let the Chiefs take Jalen Waddle away.
5:26Like if if you're Sean Payton is one of the best play callers of recent NFL history.
5:31And 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.
5:38And then on top of that, when he did finally get a nice look on a key third down when this was
5:45still a game, he dropped the ball. Just I'm I'm really in my feelings about Jalen Waddle's Denver debut.
5:51I didn't mean to speed run us to the Broncos offense conversation.
5:54We can save that for a little bit later.
5:57I want to sit in the Chiefs for a little bit longer.
6:00Obviously, the run game, everything you could have wanted it to be the fact that they leaned on it the way that they did.
6:07I mean, everything we projected about what the offense might try to be in terms of their identity this offseason.
6:13They leaned into every element of that over the course of this game.
6:17If you were trying to build a case for why you should be excited about this specific version of the Chiefs, it
6:24started with them being more of a run first team and at the very least a more explosive team on the ground.
6:30Check, check. The other part of it was we have a little bit of an injection of youth and juice on defense.
6:37What is that going to mean for this team?
6:39It's unfortunate that Munster Delay came out after the first drive, but he played one drive and had an interception.
6:45And then you look at what the defense in the secondary in the front looked like compared to what it looked like last year.
6:52I remember, Derek, we talked about this at some point last season when we were just really ruminating on how the Chiefs
6:59felt different than they felt when they were at their best.
7:02And the offense obviously is the starting point for that conversation.
7:05And we can talk about the passing game here in a second.
7:09But the other element of that was when they were blitzing on defense, it just didn't have the teeth that we're so
7:15used to them having when they're sending extra bodies at the quarterback.
7:19In this game today, 30.3% blitz rate. Bo Nix finishes 2 of 9 for 13 yards against the blitz.
7:24He was pressured on 45.5% of his dropbacks per next gen.
7:28Ready? 2 of 10 for 5 yards when pressured in this game, Bo Nix was.
7:32That's disgusting. We'll talk about the Broncos culpability in that.
7:35The Chiefs defense deserves a lot of credit. And I really liked the version of the Chiefs defense that we saw, especially
7:41when they were at full strength when Delane was in there.
7:45This was a team, and Jamari Conner was hurt today, but I don't imagine.
7:49I'm not sure how much he'll be in their plans anyway.
7:52Them playing, when they were in their dime look, they had four corners on the field.
7:57Sneed, Chris Roland-Wallace, who is a slot corner. They had Delane and Noel Williams.
8:01And then they had two safeties and one linebacker.
8:04And they're going to play and can play a decent amount of man coverage in those looks.
8:09That version of the Chiefs defense, that's the one I wanted to see.
8:12And we got a really fun glimpse at that tonight.
8:15You got a bunch of the man coverage stuff.
8:18There was a play at the end that Noel Williams makes, and the game was already kind of out of hand.
8:24But he makes a great play on Troy Franklin.
8:27The interception that Delane gets, he's just one-on-one with his guy.
8:30The fact that that's the thing, the dream for what the defense was going to look like is Spags can blitz again,
8:37and they can play man-to-man coverage the way they want to.
8:40And I think you saw, literally on the first drive, the fact that Dave mentioned it.
8:45The fact that he calls a double corner blitz on the first play of the game.
8:49First play. I was like, oh, Spags is back.
8:52We're back. I think the last couple of years, they'd become more of a zone-based defense, and they were good at that at first.
8:59And then just a couple of things fell away.
9:02Some guys get older. Some of the corners start to fall away.
9:05It doesn't feel like their defense anymore. Now they're playing kind of like they did earlier in the Spags era, where it
9:12was more like blitz and man coverage. But now they have the talent to do it.
9:16And I thought up front, their front four actually looked really good.
9:20Like Chris Jones was good. Karloff just had, I think, three pressures in this game.
9:24Our Mason Thomas had a couple of nice plays.
9:27That inside win. He had it against McGlinchey. Great play.
9:30And you even got... FAU had a play. Yeah, on one of the Bo Nicks, I think the fumble, yeah, the fumble strip sack.
9:37He like, again, I think he beats through the center, and then he's able to go, Chris Jones comes and cleans it up.
9:44And it's like, if everybody's making plays on this defense, it's such a dynastic thing.
9:48Like, it reminds me of the Patriots back in the day that LeJarius Sneed went to the wilderness for a couple years.
9:55Just an abysmal time in Tennessee, and he's back here in the lineup.
9:59And if I didn't know what's been going on with him, I would just assume he'd been there the whole time.
10:05Well, I think moving him inside is actually, it makes a lot of sense.
10:09It's what he did at the beginning of his career.
10:12Remember, he was a slot corner early on, and now that he's, I mean, physically, he's just diminished compared to what he was.
10:19I mean, that knee is obviously a huge issue and was in Tennessee.
10:23So putting him inside and asking him to do just a little bit less than you would have when he was at
10:29his best, I think it actually makes a ton of sense.
10:32He 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.
10:41Like, you could just feel them when they made contact with Broncos players, both of them.
10:45Noel Williams is one of those guys that I was so excited to see how he would play this year, and the returns were immediate.
10:53What he's doing against the run, the physicality he's bringing, just across the board, extremely impressed with what that element of the Chiefs defense looked like.
11:00And this is the formula. It is, can we run the ball?
11:04Can we play really good defense? Can we be that sort of team in a way that we've never really tried to be before?
11:11And unfortunately, and we do have to talk about this, you're going to have to be that sort of team if the
11:17passing game looks the way that it did in this game.
11:21Because for as good as the running game looked, we were at a spot at halftime where, I want to get the
11:27actual numbers down because I'm curious about them. At halftime in this game, Mahomes was 8 of 18 for 62 yards.
11:334.5 air yards per attempt. We were looking it up at halftime as we were talking.
11:38He had not completed a pass beyond the sticks in the first half of this game.
11:43So for as good as the running game was, for as exciting as the defense was for Kansas City, the passing game
11:49for the most part was still pretty DOA. And I leave this game still worried about that moving forward.
11:55I am as well. Like that was one where I was like, it's funny too, because if you told me Kenneth Walker
12:01had the game he had, I would have thought the passing game would have looked better.
12:06Because it was like my idea with the offense was like, well, if Kenneth Walker can do this, teams are going to
12:13play them a little bit differently up front. Maybe that happens over the course of the season.
12:18But I was like, well, the passing game will have a little bit more room to breathe.
12:23And they just didn't look like they had anything.
12:25Like there was basically the one where she rice, they threw like a screen to him and that kind of worked.
12:32And other than that, they really weren't able to connect on that many.
12:35Are you talking about the touchdown? Yeah. The strongest defensive plays by Denver.
12:39The Kelsey play is just unacceptable. Oh, that one too.
12:42Why would you give them one when they haven't been able to move the ball throwing at the entire game?
12:48I would have bet my life that you could just sit back and make Mahomes keep doing that to you.
12:54And it's probably going to work out okay based on what we saw.
12:58Like when they, when that happened, I don't know, Denver sent at least six guys on that play.
13:03I was like, ooh, this feels really aggressive for how much the Chiefs have shown passing.
13:08And sure enough, I mean, it's a first down on third and six regardless.
13:12And then awful tackling turns it into a 59-yard gain.
13:15I did not understand the logic there by Vance Joseph whatsoever.
13:18Those 59 yards were half of their receiving production in the second half of this game.
13:23You're going to look at the numbers. Mahomes was 7 of 9 for 122 in the second half and think, ah, that looks pretty good.
13:30Half of them came on that broken play to Kelsey.
13:33And so the passing game overall, I still think there is a lot to be desired about what this thing is going to look like.
13:41To go back to the Rice play, I mean, Jonah Ellis and Riley Moss had him dead to rights at the 10-yard
13:47line on a ball that he caught at the 12.
13:50And he scores on that. And this, that's the other, we don't, we can keep it on the Chiefs.
13:56But like, if I'm a Denver fan, and don't get me wrong, I'm well aware how bad the offense was.
14:01But we saw this last year where you had nights, maybe you didn't have many nights that were this bad.
14:07The Jets game, the Raiders game. I remember. There were a couple.
14:11But the point being, this is worse. This was worse than those games, by the way.
14:16The overarching point is like the offense has always been a little bit of a roller coaster.
14:21The defense is the stabilizing force. And the defense was bad.
14:24The defense was horrendous tonight. The Broncos had an explosive play rate last year of 7.7%.
14:29Best in the league, only behind Seattle. When I looked this up, and there was still game to play because this became
14:35a game where I could start working on my notes ahead of time.
14:39When I looked this up late in the game, they had given up an explosive play rate of 12.7%.
14:45So getting close to that. Without a team that can throw the ball.
14:48Without a team that can throw the ball. One explosive on the ground.
14:52Through the air. And that's the thing. I, this receiving core, I'm, I mean, I already probably felt this way going into the season.
14:59They can't do anything. I know. They cannot do anything.
15:02Like the fact that Rasheed Rice bounces off a guy, that's cool when the rest of the passing offense kind of works
15:09and he's like a second or third option. The fact that he might be their best pass catcher now is worrisome.
15:15Xavier Worthy, I thought like all the targets to him were borderline useless.
15:19Like I, I just don't know what they even do with him at this point.
15:23And like Tyquan Thornton is kind of just a deep ball guy.
15:27Like I really don't know how they fixed the receiving core.
15:30Like they've kind of made their bed. It's kind of crazy that the best version of the running game that you could
15:37have imagined and the worst version of the passing game that you could have imagined.
15:41Like they existed at the same time in this game, like every bit of enthusiasm or optimism you would have had about
15:47the Chiefs coming into the season for all the Kenneth Walker stuff.
15:51And every bit of pessimism and fear you would have about the passing game existed simultaneously in this game.
15:57It's honestly really fitting because when we've talked about the Chiefs in the summer, it's will it be enough?
16:02Yes, the running game is going to be more explosive.
16:05Yes, we trust that to be true. Will it be enough?
16:08Well, it was enough here. Some of that is because Denver kind of imploded, but I think it could be enough in
16:15a lot of the games the Chiefs play. But I disagree with that.
16:19You have to be better throwing the ball against an offense that is functional if you're going to continue to win football games.
16:25They have to be better than they were tonight.
16:28Like that's not even like a negotiable point. I am baking in the idea that it will be better than what this was.
16:35But it does have to be. It has to be.
16:38You can't win this exact game that many times.
16:41I will put a number on that and we will use that as a way to get into the Broncos conversation.
16:47In this game, the Kansas City Chiefs threw 18.5% of their passes to the sticks.
16:51Okay? That is an untenable number. The team right ahead of them that finished 29th this weekend was at 29%.
16:57The league average was 39%. The Chiefs were at 18.5%.
17:00Here's where it gets very fun. There were two teams that finished below the Chiefs in the percentage of their throws to the sticks in week one.
17:08One of them was the Cooper Rush Falcons. They finished at 18.2%, negative six average air yards to the sticks.
17:14My favorite number here, 104% of the Falcons receiving yardage came on yak because they kept throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage.
17:21That's all really gross. Guess who was worse? Probably.
17:24Was it the guy who just played? Was it Denver?
17:27No, not by those numbers exactly, but overall as a quality passing offense.
17:30The Denver Broncos today, per next gen, the Falcons were at negative .41 EPA per play.
17:35Overall on offense. The Broncos were at negative .45.
17:38So they were worse. They had a 29.8% success rate that Broncos did tonight, which was the worst of all of week one.
17:45They had 14 successful plays in the game. 14.
17:47Double that might not be good enough to win a football game.
17:51That's so gross. The Rams in the disaster class that the Rams put on had 24.
17:55Exactly. That's almost double and that was not close enough to get the Rams in the game.
18:00They had 24. 24. I said the Falcons were...
18:03Do you know how many plays the Broncos ran?
18:0647. 14 successful plays on 47 plays. They had two explosive plays.
18:09Talked about this earlier today. The only other... Every other team in the league except for the Titans had at least four in week one.
18:17Negative .57 EPA per drop back for the Broncos in this game.
18:20They threw the ball 70% of the time. They averaged 3.6 yards per pass.
18:24The Falcons were at 4.5. It's real gross, man.
18:27This is like every single fear you could have had about this offense.
18:31And honestly, the thing is like... No, no, no, no.
18:34The whole team. Yes. Oh, yeah. This is... Everything the Broncos did tonight was like a worst case scenario for...
18:40If you were a Broncos fan with anxiety heading into the season between the offense no-showing, again, the defense playing far below
18:46its standard, and we can get into this in a minute.
18:49Like, your early return on play calling and the whole transition from Sean Payton to Davis Webb, there's no way you feel good about that right now.
18:57Before we move on, let's take a quick break.
19:00I don't think we came down on some other teams last night that hard that looked bad in week one.
19:06It was a lot of new staffs. New play callers, new situations, week one.
19:10And I think you can explain away a lot of stuff in week one for teams that are starting over again.
19:16We mentioned it, again, last night. You think about what the Jags looked like early last season, what the Bears looked like early last season.
19:24Sometimes these things can take a little while for you to settle into being the team that you want to.
19:30Should that be the case in year four? Not in year four.
19:33And like... And we could probably... We could say this about the Rams, and we were pretty harsh about the Rams.
19:39You can make a case that the Broncos have the best roster in football, or at least one of the top three or four.
19:46And the fact that they came out this flat immediately...
19:49That's hard for me to do. I think the Rams definitively have a better roster than the Broncos.
19:55The Broncos are more complete. They might be the best roster in the AFC.
19:59It's on a short list. And I think if we remove the quarterback, it makes it a little bit easier to make the case for the Broncos.
20:07I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. Well, what's fun... This is...
20:10We're splitting hairs here. I'm right there with you, but all the shit that makes you feel good about the Broncos roster looked bad tonight.
20:17I was going to say, nobody looked good. The offensive line gave up a 45% pressure rate.
20:22Also, the Rams flew to Australia. Yeah, I'll give them a little bit of a mulligan.
20:27The Broncos flew to Kansas City. Yes. It's a 90-minute flight.
20:30I think I'm going to give the Rams a little bit more grace here.
20:34And they play there all the time. It was really humid, guys.
20:38It was really humid in Kansas City. Oh, my God.
20:41If I, like, this is the most copium ever.
20:43But I just have to lean into it because I'm invested in the Broncos.
20:47Obviously, it's something I don't feel good about right now.
20:50But the amount of weird shit that happened in this game, I assume because of the humidity, I'm at least filing it
20:57away in the back of my mind. Keep in mind, Creed Humphrey put two snaps on the ground in this game.
21:03So, like, it affected both teams. Oh, man, you are really telling yourself the story here.
21:08Bo Nix had two balls slip out of his hands, like, unprompted.
21:11The numbers they had in this game should be the result of a monsoon.
21:16It should be that Dolphins-Steelers game from Monday Night Football in, like, 2006 or whatever game.
21:20The ball should stick in the ground when it hits it for you to have the numbers that the Broncos had on offense today.
21:27Humidity be damned. Ask Ichiro Suzuki about Kansas City in August, okay?
21:31That's all I'm saying. I do think you make a good point, though, that nobody looked good.
21:36It's a shit point, but it's all I have right now.
21:39But, like, I do, when that many players struggle with the football on the same night, it does make me wonder.
21:45It's not a good enough excuse for the performance the Broncos put out there.
21:49It's not even the beginning of the start of a fraction of a good enough excuse for the performance the Broncos had tonight.
21:56And because some of it, some of these guys looking bad was not just the ball handling stuff.
22:02Like, the Broncos offensive line just did not look as good as they typically do.
22:06The Bo Nicks, the late third quarter strip sack, I think it's the one where Felix on the DK Uzama gets there first.
22:13They look like they're going to pressure. And then they drop out and they drop all of their guys to the offense's right.
22:20And Denver has, like, a screen to that side.
22:22It was a three down lineman look. And so it was a funky look up front.
22:27And Nick sees them drop out to, like, where the screen is going and just freaks out and doesn't throw it and
22:33holds the ball and he gets strip sacked. It was stuff like that.
22:37Like, RJ Harvey late in the game almost got Bo Nicks strip sacked again because Nick Bolton came firing on a blitz and almost got there.
22:45He, like, got his hand on it and we were debating whether or not that was a fumble.
22:50It was just stuff like that all game. I mentioned, like, it just didn't feel like any of the Broncos players played
22:57well except, like, Evan Ingram caught that touchdown on the first or second drive.
23:01And that was about it. It was a really cool battle in the backfield.
23:05We had one moment where, like, oh, man, Davis Webb is cooking.
23:09And it lasted a drive. Well, let's bring up, like, the argument.
23:12Well, there are so many bad sequences here. But with everything that we just said, and even after the Kenneth Walker explosive
23:19touchdown, it's 21-7, it was still there to be a football game.
23:22Jalen Waddell drops third down as you're driving to try to tie.
23:26And even then, it could still be a football game because of whatever the hell the miscommunication was between Mahomes and Xavier
23:32Worthy, it looked like, leads to an interception return that puts you on the plus five with a chance to make it 21-14.
23:39That drive went negative eight yards over four plays.
23:42Pat Bryant draws a holding call that bumps you back to the 15.
23:45Bo Nix 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 idea.
23:54It was very humid, Robert. Thank you for reminding everybody at home.
23:57And then you kick a field goal to keep it a two-score game.
24:01Like, that was such an abysmal sequence. You have young players getting penalties, you have inexcusable turnover issues, you can blame the play calling if you want to.
24:09Did you see Sean Payton's quote at halftime about play calling, by the way?
24:13Oh, that was good. Lorna Rutledge asked him about, like, how does it feel not calling plays?
24:18And he said, ask me in another half. Which his answer then...
24:22Before the bottom dropped out of this thing. Let's get this thing.
24:26His answer now probably is a lot worse than what it would have been to have.
24:30I'm nervous about that, if I'm being honest. How can you not be?
24:34I mean, just the dynamics, they were already complicated with that handoff occurring.
24:38Now, when you have this sort of performance in week one, and again, if it was mediocre, whatever.
24:43The idea that your passing offense was less functional than the Cooper Rush Falcons yesterday is a really rough place to start.
24:50Really rough. They played a game that, like, we might get to the end of the season and this will be, like,
24:56the worst passing game of the season. Like, that is entirely possible.
25:00Absolutely. 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.
25:08Them handing off the play calling thing was already kind of weird enough.
25:12Doing it in the year where you have to figure out if you want to pay the quarterback is, like, an extra layer of weird.
25:19I love that you think that they're thinking about not paying the quarterback.
25:23I mean, they shouldn't be thinking about paying the quarterback if it was me, but...
25:27But that, to me, almost feels like a done deal based on what he's done and how they talk.
25:33If he's going to keep doing that, I don't...
25:36It's not my money. I'm not making a decision.
25:38They have Walmart money. They've got enough of it to throw around.
25:42I hear you, but we thought Stroud's deal was done way ahead of time, too.
25:46Like, I mean, this was the team that came an unfortunate ankle break away from at least being in the Super Bowl.
25:53And, like, if this... We're getting ahead of ourselves because I'm not...
25:56We don't need to litigate Bo Nix contract stuff.
25:59But all I'm saying, like, if this season is, like, a disaster, it changes all the conversations about Bo Nix.
26:05That is so far down the line. I'm really not...
26:08I'm, like, sitting on the edge of panicking, but I'm going to not panic for the time being.
26:13I think because it's a staff... Even with a new play caller, it is a staff overall with extreme continuity on both sides of the ball.
26:21It's not... Davis Webb was here. And even if we're...
26:24I mean, obviously, the staff turned over. Like, Joe Lombardi is no longer there.
26:28And so the people in charge of the game planning process and all of that, like, there are shifts in how that's happened.
26:35I don't want to minimize that. But I think when you consider the defense carrying over...
26:39Vance Joseph has obviously been there. This defense has been one of the best in the league.
26:45Sean Payton, even if he's not calling plays, him and Davis Webb have still been very central to how the process has gone offensively for the Broncos.
26:52When 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.
27:00I'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.
27:08I 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.
27:16And the Seahawks, obviously, they weren't terrible. They lost their quarterback for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time.
27:21It seems like it's going to be a short amount of time.
27:24I come away from that game being very... feeling very good about Seattle because that's one of those games that, like, you should lose.
27:31And they were just like, f*** you. Don't misunderstand me.
27:34I 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.
27:42At least for the time being. Like, it was a very weird week for teams that, like, view as the elite of the elite.
27:49And it's interesting that you say that because, like, okay, Rams...
27:53I'm right off the top of my head. Rams, Broncos.
27:56I'll throw the Cowboys in there for sure. Yeah.
27:58Patriots. Like, who else is in the conversation for, like...
28:01Those are probably the three teams. And I think I...
28:04I mean, Chargers was... Chargers was bad too. But again, you're...
28:07They probably weren't that level, but still... New offensive staff.
28:10And beyond, like, I know it's a new play caller in Denver, but the head coach that was the play caller, like,
28:17there's still enough continuity with people who were in the building that I feel less inclined to give them the grace that
28:23I would give other people in this process. Yes.
28:26Denver and New England. And I, like, both had awful, awful first weeks.
28:30And losing A.J. Brown for, I mean, at least a month, if not more, is pretty tough.
28:35But, 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 bullshit.
28:43Exactly, yes. Denver, this performance... Yeah. I think you're right.
28:46I had to work my way through it, but I think you're right.
28:50Tough look on both sides of the ball. Tough start on both sides of the ball for the Broncos.
28:56I don't think I said that they threw 17.9% of their passes to the sticks in this game.
29:01Oh, yeah, you were talking, but you were dancing around it with the Chiefs, but 17.9% is crazy.
29:06They dead last. 17.9%. And a lot of that, some of that is by design, but, like, also, and I don't remember
29:13the number, but I looked up last year when I was talking about Bo Nix.
29:17He, when he gets pressured, does not throw at the sticks.
29:20And he was pressured a lot in this game.
29:23And you just got, I mean, you brought up the stats earlier.
29:26He was pressured a lot in this game and just didn't...
29:30He's just a quarterback who it's going to be check down, scramble, or not something at the sticks.
29:35Sean Payton, Troy Eakman said during the game that Sean Payton told his wife to draft Jalen Waddle in fantasy football this year.
29:42Wonder what that conversation is going to look like when he gets home.
29:46Probably not as bad as the conversation he's going to have with Davis Webb over the next couple days.
29:51Having read the story from the playoffs about what Sean Payton's game planning meetings are like, that feels like it's going to be a long talk.
29:59Bronco staff is going to be spending 18 hours a day at the facility from here on out through the rest of the season.
30:06It's going to be real fun for everybody. All right.
30:09That is all we've got with our Monday night recap from week one.
30:13The Monday Hangover is going to be available in your podcast feeds as you were listening to this.
30:18If 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.
30:25That's the first time that we're doing this. But same schedule that we've always had on top of that.
30:31They won't replace the daily shows that are coming.
30:34So the Hangover is in your podcast feed right now.
30:37If you're watching this on YouTube after noon central on Tuesday, you can also check out the Hangover on YouTube.
30:43If you are watching this on YouTube, if you are new to the channel, we would encourage you to like and subscribe.
30:49Got a lot of new people that have joined us over the last month or so.
30:54Very excited about that. Excited to keep things rolling.
30:56We have multiple video specific video first franchises that will be on the YouTube channel this year.
31:01My Did You Notice series is back. Derek is back with How It Happened.
31:06And Dave is joining the fray this year for the first time.
31:09When's that coming out? I recorded it tonight. It's called That Rocked.
31:13It's basically just going to be me spotlighting under the radar performances that I really enjoyed.
31:17I honestly don't know when it airs, but probably soon if I recorded it tonight.
31:22That Rocked fitting for the Dave Hellman brand. That's right.
31:25All right. That is all we've got for today.
31:27Sincerely appreciate you guys joining us. We'll talk to you very soon.
