The Denver Broncos were the No. 1 seed in the AFC last season and came extremely close to reaching the Super Bowl. Much of that success came at the expense of the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that had won the AFC West nine years in a row prior to last season.
The Chiefs had also been to the AFC Championship Game seven consecutive times while appearing in five of the last six Super Bowls before last season. For those reasons, many of the causes for concern in this game, if you're a Broncos fan, don't have anything to do with an individual player or a mismatch that the Chiefs could attempt to exploit.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some things that Broncos fans should be at least a little bit nervous about heading into the season opener.
Broncos' causes for concern vs. Chiefs in Week 1
1. Arrowhead crowd mixed with return of Patrick Mahomes
As the defending AFC West champion, it's a shame the Broncos didn't get this game in Denver.
It's a difficult task to go into Arrowhead Stadium on a normal NFL day. But when you combine the fact that this game will take place in prime-time in front of a national audience and it will feature the return of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who tore his ACL and LCL last December, and the term "tough environment" gets ramped up a few notches for the Broncos.
This will be the single biggest factor in this game, and how the Broncos deal with it will determine their success in this one.
2. Referee Clay Martin
Chiefs fans will scoff at this notion, but the fact that Clay Martin was named the referee for this game should not evoke excitement for Broncos fans, considering Mahomes has never lost a game in which he's been the lead official.
3. Revenge factor
Because of the notes about the Chiefs' prior success above, the Broncos can easily be seen as the team that took that all away from them. The Broncos swept the Chiefs last season and became the first team other than Kansas City to win the division since 2015. The Chiefs and their fans are angry about that, and the Broncos have a massive bullseye on them as a result.
This could easily become an emotional game, and many times in those situations, it's the cooler heads that prevail. Coach Sean Payton needs to have his team focused and treating this like any other game as best they can.
Social: Follow Broncos Wire on Facebook and Twitter/X!
This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: 3 causes for concern when Broncos face Chiefs in Week 1
