The Broncos-Chiefs Rivalry...

The Broncos have lost 13 straight games to the Chiefs dating back to Week 2 of 2015. Over time it seems that the games have become more and more uncompetitive in the midst of this 13 game slide. To me, it's a tale of 2 halves:

2016-2018:

I will be ignoring the game the Broncos lost to KC later in 2015 as that was the game Manning tossed 4 interceptions and got benched so it is really hard to properly evaluate that game as it was just a weird sort of outlier game. Alright now lets talk about this rivalry from 2016-2018. The Chiefs of course won all 6 games but the games seemed to actually have suspense, drama, and left me in heartbreak in so many of the losses. The scores of those losses were 30-27, 33-10, 29-19, 27-24, 27-23, and 30-23. Denver lost all games but it seemed like Denver had a real shot in each of those games aside from the Christmas day massacre where KC blew Denver out 33-10. There was the game where Siemian threw 300+ yards and 3 TDs and Denver lost in OT in heartbreaking fashion 30-27 in a pivotal game on Sunday Night Football where both teams were 7-3. Even the 29-19 game the score was 20-13 midway through the third before Siemian channeled his inner Peyton Manning and decide to throw some horrendous interceptions. I say that jokingly but even in that game Denver was a very bad team but showed some real fight and watching the game it seemed like Denver had a chance. Fast forward to 2018 the Broncos were up 23-13 on Mahomes and the Chiefs in the 4th quarter and the Chiefs rallied to take the lead 27-23 but Denver had one last hope in the final drive to take the lead and Case Keenum overthrew a wide open Demaryius Thomas down the right sideline. Then a few weeks later Denver played KC tough in Arrowhead as it was a 30-20 ball game in the 4th but the Chiefs offense could not get anything going offensively as Mahomes threw a pick and got sacked 3 times in the 4th and the offense not taking advantage that whole period was very frustrating. I point this all out to say the losses from 16'-18' actually stung as a fan because it felt like Denver had a real chance to win the games and so many times snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. However from 19'-22', it's a whole different feeling.

2019-2022:

The Chiefs won 6 games in this stretch too but it did not feel like one bit of the previous 6 games. The Chiefs have won these games 30-6, 23-3, 43-16, 22-16, 22-9, 28-24. The first 5 games all felt the same. I will get to the 6th one later. But for some reason from 2019 onwards it has not even been close. I know that is when Vic Fangio took over as HC so it would be easy to say Fangio was bad vs KC but I have a hard time placing blame on him for all of these uncompetitive losses. It got to the point where if Denver does not get blown out by 20, that's good enough. The losses became less painful because the fans knew Denver had no chance and the worst part of it is is Denver would always play like they had no chance. It would always be so mind-boggling to me why Denver has remained so uncompetitive with KC in this stretch. I get that KC was always the better team but that was even the case from 16'-18'. To me personally, from 2016 to 2018 the Broncos lost to the Chiefs simply because they were the better team but from 2019-2022 it feels like Denver's losses to KC is more than just KC being better than them. It feels like Denver self-implodes and shoots themselves in the foot every team they faced KC since 2019. And the reason it is so mind-boggling to me that the Broncos kept getting tomahawk chopped by KC was because every-time they faced KC, they were actually playing good football weeks building up to their matchup. Here are a few examples. The Broncos start 0-4 in 2019 but come off 2 good wins beating the Chargers 20-13 and the Titans 16-0 before their week 7 matchup vs Chiefs. Additionally that very same year KC started 4-0 and lost 2 straight so they were 4-2 and that made the week 7 matchup so much more interesting as the Broncos were trending up while the Chiefs were sliding a little bit so this is going to be a good game right? Wrong! Chiefs beat the Broncos 30-6 as the Broncos easily put up their worst performance of that season. Later that same year the Broncos once again were on a little bit of a roll as Rookie Drew Lock came in put up some nice performances including a 38-24 dismantling of the 8-4 Texans and were set to play KC the very next week. Surely Denver can at least be competitive right? Nope they get smacked 23-3. I understand that winning in KC with a young QB is tough but why was Denver so uncompetitive? The very next year Denver is on another 2 game win streak that put them from 0-3 to 2-3 with a chance to go back to .500 in week 7 vs KC and get blown out 43-16. The Broncos finally came within 10 points when losing 22-16 vs KC on SNF and Broncos fans were just happy to not get embarrassed on national television. The final nail in the coffin was in 2021 when Denver had a winning record for the first time in forever and came off of an impressive win beating the Chargers who were playing good football as well and then laid an egg the very next week once again vs KC. That game was for first place in the division and they ended up losing 22-9 and were dominated from start to finish. It was this particular loss that made me realize it is just more than the fact that Denver had some poor teams and dealt with poor QB play. It felt like Denver had some mental block every time they were set to play KC. Were they too amped before games? Did it get to a point where they truly believed in their heart of hearts they couldn't beat that team from Missouri?

This whole article may sound a little confusing but to put it simply this is what i mean: From 2016-2018 it felt like the Broncos losses were due to the chiefs being a better team. However, since 2019 it feels like Denver sort of adopted this "little brother" mentality to KC and played a certain way that displayed they didn't truly believe they could actually beat KC or that's what it felt like at least. That's why the 2022 week 18 game was such a breath of fresh air. It had intrigue and it felt like Denver had KC actually on the ropes for the first time in 3 years and even though Denver lost that game I actually felt pain losing to KC for the first time in a long time. Even with Russ on the team this year I am still a little worried about how the rest of the team will come out to play vs KC. They need to beat KC and get that monkey off of their back because the longer this win streak goes, I feel like maybe even Russell Wilson may not be able to revive the rivalry.