It was right there. The Broncos were about to pull it off. They were about to hand the Chiefs their first loss and beat them for the second straight time head-to-head. With one second remaining, Wil Lutz lines up to kick a short field goal to put the Broncos in the top 17-16. The Kick is up and it...is....blocked. What a way to lose a football game. In a game that Denver was leading for most of it, they could not come away with the lead when the clock hit triple zeros. This is a devastating loss because of how improbable an event like this occurs.
It's easy to blame the refs at certain points of the game but at the end of the day, Denver scored 0 points in the second half. They were unable to move the ball after they went up 14-3 and allowed KC to slowly creep back into this game and take the lead 16-14 with 5 minutes left in the game. The Chiefs have a great defense so this isn't me bashing on the offense. This game was a good example of how razor-thin the margins are when you play against the Chiefs. Despite the second-half struggles offensively, the Broncos, in my opinion, played a very good game overall. Though they only scored 14 points, the defense made it hard on the Chiefs' offense all day, and the offense made plays when they needed to. But this game showed that it doesn't matter if you play a solid 59:59 vs KC. You need to be at your best for 60 minutes and the Broncos squandered that 1 second in the end which cost them the game. We will see what this team is made of this Sunday. Can they bounce back and win against a solid Falcons team or will they allow the heartbreaking loss to linger for the upcoming weeks?
It was a tough loss but there are certainly some bright spots. The most important one is that Bo Nix looks more and more like the Franchise guy she played a tremendous game throwing for 215 yards on 22/30 passing with 2 passing TDs and no interceptions. Most importantly he made the key throws down the stretch in that final drive to set the team up for a short Field Goal. The next takeaway was seeing that defense bounce back after a rough week vs Baltimore. They held KC, who averages 24.3 ppg to 16 and sacked Mahomes 4 times. They also held the Chiefs, who had started becoming one of the better running teams, to just 57 yards on the ground. This was proof that the defense is legit and their early season success was not just a product of playing bad offenses. This team sits at 5-5 and is still at the 7th seed so as of today they are still a playoff team and the teams behind them are the Colts, Bengals, and Dolphins. With those teams struggling, I think 9 wins will get this team in the playoffs.
The loss sucks, but the team is still in good shape to make the postseason for the first time since 2016 and it starts with Atlanta at home this weekend.
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