The two best teams in the AFC West meet tonight to close out the first week of regular season National Football League action. The host Kansas City Chiefs have been a dominant force for a decade while advancing to five Super Bowls and winning three of them. The visitors at Arrowhead Stadium tonight, the Denver Broncos, have advanced to the playoffs the past two seasons and may have gone on to the Super Bowl last season had their quarterback, Bo Nix, not missed the AFC Championship Game with an injury suffered in his winning performance the prior week against the Buffalo Bills.
While the Broncos won home field advantage for the AFC playoffs last season, the Chiefs had their first losing year behind their dynamic quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. Even before he was knocked out of action in December, the Chiefs were likely to miss the postseason while finishing the year with only six wins.
Mahomes’ injury last year ended any his hopes for the 2025 season, but will it also affect his 2026 campaign? The Chiefs quarterback talents on the field included not only feature pinpoint passing and the ability to throw accurately from many angles, his legs served to make him one of the most elusive signal callers in the game. Will his serious injury leave him less able to break out of the pocket and gain key yards that lead to Kansas City wins?
Tonight, we will get the first look at post-injury Mahomes, and he is going to be tested by one of the best defenses in all of football.
Last season, the Broncos stop unit allowed the second fewest yards and third fewest points in the 32-team NFL. It was their defense and clutch play by second-year quarterback Nix that allowed this team to win an NFL best 14 games in 2025. They were also adept at winning the close ones, compiling a 10-2 record in games decided by one score.
Their opponent tonight, the Chiefs, had a similar mastery over close games in 2024 and parlayed that action all the way to the Super Bowl. The following year, that edge shifted against them during their six-win season.
Are the Broncos looking down the gun barrel of a reversal of fortunes in close games this year? Or, perhaps last season, was simply a kick-back reaction to the 2024 campaign when the Broncos lost six of seven games decided by a single score. For clarification, "single score” games are those that end with a seven point or less gap.
Now the big question. The Chiefs dismal record last season followed up their fortuitous 2024 campaign that ended with a beating by the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. After nearly a decade of brilliance did that indicate an end to their reign as one of, or the best team, in the league?
On paper, it appears to me the Chiefs are a step off their brilliance of three years ago, and the question on how Mahomes will return from his injury can’t be known until we see him in game action.
The Broncos won eight more games than the Chiefs last year and beat their AFC West Division rivals twice. Has the pendulum of power shifted from Kansas City to the Mile High City? If it has, getting the Broncos in tonight’s opener with points on the spread is a bargain.
Still, to declare the Andy Reid years of dominance over and go against the Chiefs in a game against a division opponent that they know is going to require a full effort on their part to survive is not an ideal time to test the theory that the Chiefs are done.
I like the Broncos, pick them to win the Super Bowl, but meeting Mahomes and company on the road when their hosts have something to prove is not a motivational spot that secures confidence in making a wager.
We’ll know a lot more about the Chiefs and Mahomes after we see them in game action … and we’ll do that without a vested interest in tonight’s contest.