Broncos protection weakness found and exploited by Chiefs, leading to game-deciding block

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wil Lutz didn’t have much of a chance once Leo Chenal knocked over Denver Broncos offensive lineman Alex Forsyth on a fateful field-goal attempt as time expired Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium.

When it left Lutz’s right foot, “it felt good,” the veteran kicker said in the pall of the locker room after the Broncos’ 16-14 defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. But it didn’t stay in the air long. Kansas City defenders Leo Chenal and George Karlaftis attacked Forsyth, knocking him over in placekick protection, and Chenal blocked the 35-yard attempt.

It wasn’t the first time Forsyth had been knocked down. In fact, in the Broncos’ last 10 placekicks — including extra points — opponents forced him off his feet 8 times. Carolina did it on all four extra points in Week 8; Baltimore got to him once last week, and the Chiefs did so three times Sunday — once on the Broncos’ second PAT and then on both field-goal attempts.

Aligned between Mike McGlinchey and Matt Peart, Forsyth found himself at the point of attack Sunday. And according to Chenal, it was something the Chiefs planned from their film study.

As he shared with Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, Chenal and the Chiefs felt “the bull rush would work,” noting that in area of the protection scheme, the Broncos had a player who was “light on his toes.”

Added Chiefs coach Andy Reid, “We get to see that every day [in practice], we work that block and that last final shot there.”

 

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Added Broncos inside linebacker Jonathon Cooper: “It just comes down to execution. Comes down to — it’s all four quarters until it hits zero and we just have to finish.

“We know that they’re competitors and we know that they’re not going to stop until it hits zero. And we just got to execute like we just have to be more on it and finish those plays, man. I mean, it’s just tough. It’s real tough.”

Lutz didn’t point fingers after the game, which also saw him fall short on a 60-yard attempt at the end of the first half. Had he made it, it would have matched his career-long kick.

“I thought I hit it good,” he said. “It’s a tough stadium kick in, tough wind. It was right into the teeth of the wind. And the end of the day, I told Coach [Sean Payton] I wanted a chance at it and I thought I gave it a chance. It was right between the posts, just not quite long enough.”

But at the end of the first half, Lutz had the chance to get it to the goalposts. For the final 35-yard attempt, his shot at being the hero was dead on the arrival of a furious Chiefs rush that recorded its second blocked field-goal attempt in the last two games played against the Broncos.

 

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