After the big catch over the middle by Courtland Sutton, the Denver Broncos began the second quarter from the Kansas City Chiefs 33-yard line.
Bo Nix would suffer his second batted pass at the line to end the Broncos drive. Wil Lutz would kick the 45-yard field goal to cut the Chiefs lead to one.
Chiefs 7, Broncos 6.
Alex Singleton forced a fumble on Travis Kelce on the Chiefs first play, but they recovered for a short gain. The
officiating crew came back and ruled it an incomplete pass anyway. A net positive for Denver since the recovery would have gained a few yards. An illegal formation and an incompletion would send the Chiefs punting unit out for another three-and-out.
J.K. Dobbins took a sweep for a loss of nine yards. Yes, nine yards. Sean Payton insists on keeping Dobbins in as the primary back despite everyone on planet Earth seeing much more pop whenever Jonah Coleman has the ball.
Fortunately, Bo Nix was feeling it and found Jaylen Waddle on the very next play over the middle of the field to for a 35-yard gain into Chiefs territory.
Another Bo Nix batted pass and a couple of penalties set the Broncos back to a third and 25. An offsides made it 3rd and 20, but the end result was the drive ended due to some poor plays. No points despite the big play to Waddle.
A great punt by Jeremy Crawshaw and a block in the back penalty pushed the Chiefs back to their own five yard line to start their next drive.
That didn’t matter much as the Chiefs needed just three plays to gain 30 yards to open up that drive. An egregious holding call set them back a bit to setup a second and 13. Mahomes tossed outside to Kenneth Walker III who had both Riley Moss and Ja’Quan McMillian converage with a great open field tackle to bring up a third and 10. Mahomes, though, found an open Emmett Johnson for a 73-yard touchdown.
Chiefs 14, Broncos 6.
J.K. Dobbins increased his stat line to 7 carries for 12 yards after a two yard carry on first down. That was followed up with an incompletion to setup a third and long. Nix found an open Lil’Jordan Humphrey beyond the sticks for a first down.
A face mask penalty on Jonah Coleman added to the Broncos drive to the Chiefs 41-yard line. Two plays later, Nix fired a bullet to the sideline to Courtland Sutton for an 18 yard gain just outside the 20 yard line. A quick pass over the middle to Adam Trautman setup a second and short where Jonah Coleman got his first carry and spun out of a tackle inside for a five yard gain and another first down.
Coleman again fought for extra yardage for another five yard gain to setup a second and goal at the three yard line. Nix then attempted a pass to Coleman in the end zone that drew a defensive pass interference for a first and goal from the one. The Chiefs stuffed the Broncos three straight times from the one, so on fourth down Bo Nix found Jaylen Waddle open for the touchdown instead.
Chiefs 14, Broncos 13.
The Broncos ran a ton of clock down on that 12-play, 69-yard scoring drive leading just over a minute for the Chiefs to work with.
With just over a minute, the Broncos linebackers began getting exposed in coverage against Emmett Johnson again with Justin Strnad getting burned on a 38-yard reception to put Johnson over a 100 yards on three catches. That big play would set the Chiefs up in field goal range just before halftime.
Chiefs 17, Broncos 13.
