For Broncos, bitter end doesn’t erase so many signs of progress

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — But for the thwack of the football against an outstretched Leo Chenal, the dissemination of Sunday’s game would have been so different.

There would have been so much to celebrate for the Denver Broncos in what would have been their first win at Arrowhead Stadium in nine years. So much to offer glimpses of promise for the days to come — both in future seasons and the seven gamedays remaining this season.

Take Bo Nix, for example. On this bright autumn Sunday, the rookie quarterback grew up. Facing a Kansas City defense ranked fourth in the NFL in DVOA and points allowed per game, Nix coolly guided the Broncos downfield on a controlled to what was near-automatic range for kicker Wil Lutz.

But Nix’s stellar work wasn’t limited to his surgical work in a high-leverage situation. He diced up the Chiefs for 22 completions in 30 attempts, his day sullied only by a pair of long-distance sacks when Kansas City dialed up blitzes in an attempt to rattle the young quarterback.

Nix posted a 115.3 passer rating Sunday. That’s the second-highest posted by a rookie starting quarterback playing on the road at Arrowhead Stadium — and the highest by a quarterback facing the Chiefs in a game where they weren’t resting their starters in advance of a playoff run.

He spread the ball around. It wasn’t just Courtland Sutton, although the 7-year veteran was on the receiving end of a gorgeous 32-yard touchdown pass that hit him in stride down the left sideline.

It was Devaughn Vele, who scored the first touchdown of his career and consistently moved the chains. And it was tight end Lucas Krull, who along with Adam Trautman gave the Broncos a collective 55 yards from the tight-end position, a spot that has become more productive in the last three weeks.

In the backfield, it was Audric Estimé, who seized an opportunity and worked for 53 tough yards through Kansas City’s defense, earning enough trust to have his number called 6 plays on the final drive that should have been the game-winner.

“I thought he ran his butt off, ran through tackles, gained extra yards through contact, which is huge, and that’s what he’s capable of,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “I think today was a huge step forward for Audric, and I’m really proud of him for the way he’s battled back, and he’s going to be a huge part of our success moving forward.

Then there was Denver’s defense, which has now held the Chiefs to just two touchdowns in the last three games played in the series.

Since the start of the 2023 season, Kansas City has averaged 23.7 points per game against the rest of the league — and just 14.7 points per game against the Broncos.

Four red-zone advances — including three that reached goal-to-go — resulted in a single touchdown, which was also the only one allowed by Denver’s defense in the last 10 quarters against the Chiefs. After a beatdown in Baltimore, Denver’s defense returned to the form that saw it surge to near the top of most league-wide metrics in the first eight weeks of the season.

Yeah, there’s so much going right for the Broncos that shows they’re well down the road to relevance — and perhaps their first playoff appearance in nine years.

They have established head-to-head parity with the Chiefs. Just two points separate the teams in their last three games — and it’s plus-2 for the Broncos. They have a rookie quarterback whose improvement continues apace. And they have young skill-position players who rose to the moment with the opportunities they had.

It’s all there, as clear as the skies above Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday.

You just have to look past the final play, the final score and an ocean of short-term heartbreak to see it.

“It hurts,” McGlinchey said. “That would have been a good one. And we would have done it the right way: full complete game from a team-wide perspective.”

But here’s the thing: The Broncos need to let this one hurt for a while. Sean Payton said in his postgame press conference that it would sting.

That’s a sign of how things are changing around the Broncos. During most of the last seven seasons, defeats accumulated so steadily that some of them didn’t hurt all that much.

This one?

“Just a lot of hurt,” edge rusher Jonathon Cooper said.

“Games like this supposed to hurt,” added defensive lineman Malcolm Roach. “We see the faces on everybody in this locker room, man. It’s supposed to hurt. Cause we so invested, man. Everybody come work the tail off every day, man. And we see it, man.

 

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“And if you’re not invested in it, it wouldn’t feel this way. It wouldn’t feel this bad, man. But we know where we want to go. We know where we trying to go. We know what we fighting to do. At the end of the day, we gotta keep showing up and keep going to work, and man, we gotta give this city something to be proud of, man, and we gotta get the job done.”

That pain comes when there’s something on the line. Something that was at once significant and eminently attainable.

“I know everybody in this locker room is hungry and disappointed and pissed with the way that that finished,” McGlinchey said. “And if that’s not your response, then I don’t know what you’re doing here. Because we’re here, we’re capable, we can win games, and we are what I believe is a playoff team in this conference.”

Beating the two-time defending champions and ending their unbeaten start to the season would have been a massive step toward legitimizing the status of which the 7-year veteran tackle spoke.

It was within Denver’s grasp.

And in the most unfathomable of ways, it slipped through their fingers.

“I think says a lot about what we’re building here,” McGlinchey noted. “But … gotta make that last play.”

Perhaps next time, these Broncos will. And then the palpable progress will have the pulsating win such work merits.