The Kansas City Chiefs won their 10th consecutive victory over the Denver Broncos on Sunday afternoon by embarrassing their division rivals in front of their home crowd in a 43-16 beating. Yesterday was arguably the most complete game the Chiefs have played thus far and truly demonstrated the multiple ways they’re able to get into the end zone.
Kansas City scored three touchdowns on offense, one on defense, and another on special teams. Throw in four Denver turnovers and some bad reads by quarterback Drew Lock, and it paints the picture of how far the Broncos have to go until they’ll be able to match reigning Super Bowl champs.
Unless your Broncos left tackle Garrett Bolles, that is.
The former first-round draft selection and Utah alum believe the Chiefs and Broncos are closer than the score from yesterday’s game might suggest.
“I think we’re neck-and-neck,’’ said Bolles. “That’s just me, personally. I don’t think there’s really anything that makes them more spectacular than us. We have a lot of dogs in this locker room. We have a lot of people. We match them speed for speed. Our defense is probably better than their defense, but it comes down to the little mistakes that we continue to make. We turn over the ball. We turn over the ball with the Super Bowl champs—a team like that, with Mahomes—they’re going to put points up,” Bolles explained.
Obviously, this is quite the statement from the 28-year-old Bolles, who has spent his entire career with the Broncos since being drafted in 2017 and has never been on the winning side of the scoreboard when he and his teammates go against Kansas City. Not to mention the Chiefs have outscored the Broncos 301-164 over the last 10 meetings, including yesterday.
For starters, Patrick Mahomes is currently 4-0 all-time against the Broncos and has more career wins in Denver than Drew Lock does.
In fact, you have to go back to September 17, 2015, which was the last time the Broncos handed the Chiefs an ‘L’ and September 14, 2014, was the last time the Chiefs lost at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Of course, this was during Denver’s Peyton Manning era, and the Broncos have struggled to find a viable replacement after he retired following Denver’s Championship victory in Super Bowl 50.
Since that faithful mid-September night in 2015, the Chiefs sport a 29-4 record against their AFC rivals and carry a 63-24 regular-season record, which ranks second in the NFL over that span.
In comparison, Denver is 13-18 against AFC West opponents and 41-45 in the regular season, which is tied with Indianapolis for the 17th best record.
While Chiefs and Broncos have a historic rivalry with many big names and countless storied matchups over the years, they are currently nowhere near being neck-and-neck, and it might be a while before the rivalry heats back up once again.
