Kansas City Chiefs vs Denver Broncos: Three keys to victory
The Kansas City Chiefs take on the Denver Broncos tonight on Monday Night Football. Here are three keys to a Chiefs victory.
The 3-0 Kansas City Chiefs take their high powered offense on the road in prime time tonight on Monday Night Football as they travel to Denver to take on their long time rival, the Denver Broncos.
While many fans were optimistic about the Chiefs this season with first time starter Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, I’m not sure anyone was anticipating the offensive explosion that has made the Chiefs one of the biggest stories in the NFL this season. A win on Monday in front of a huge national audience will only build the hype around Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs moving forward.
The start of the season was supposed to be the hardest part of Kansas City’s schedule. If they can start the year off 4-0 with two division road wins they will have set themselves up to not only control the division moving forward, but will be out in front of the entire AFC at the one quarter mark of the season.
So what exactly do the Chiefs need to do tonight to make that happen? Well, it starts with their high powered offense.
1. The Chiefs need to continue to start hot and get out to an early lead.
In each of the Chiefs three wins so far this season they have opened up early leads on their opponents. Against the Los Angeles Chargers the Chiefs jumped out to an early 14-3 lead behind two big touchdowns by Tyreek Hill. Against the Pittsburgh Steelers the offense started the game firing on all cylinders as they built a 21-0 lead in the first quarter. Then last week against the San Francisco 49ers they jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and even expanded it to 35-7 at one point in the first half.
The Chiefs defense hasn’t been great. We all know that. However, they have done pretty well early in each game and that has allowed the Chiefs to build a big enough lead that they can survive late in the game when the defense is tired and/or the opposing offense has made adjustments. For all their defensive problems they have still only allowed six first quarter points all season. The Chiefs, on the other hand, have scored 49 first quarter points. That’s a little over a two touchdown point differential per game in the first quarter.
Getting out to an early lead puts pressure on the opposing offense to keep pace with the Chiefs and there just aren’t many teams (if any) in the NFL that can keep pace with them. This is absolutely true of the Broncos. While Denver is 2-1 on the season they are only averaging 20.3 points per game. That’s a whopping 19.3 points less than the Chiefs. The Broncos simply aren’t built to win shoot outs. They want to wear you down and win a more physical low scoring game and if the Chiefs can take them out of that right out of the gate and turn this game into a Patrick Mahomes versus Case Keenum shoot out I think most KC fans will feel good about the outcome.
The other key to taking the Broncos out of their game plan is…..