This could not have been a more pathetic showing from the Denver Broncos, as they got blown out by the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 1, the first Monday Night Football game of the 2026 NFL Season. The Broncos were able to keep it close, but the floodgates opened in a bad way in the second half.
While offensive coordinator Davis Webb didn't exactly have a strong showing as his regular season debut as a play-caller, he obviously deserves a leash here. Webb is going to learn from this and likely settle into this role more in the coming weeks.
But the same cannot be said for Vance Joseph and the Broncos defense, as Joseph is now in his fourth year as the defensive coordinator, and it feels like some of the same issues remain, but Week 1 did reveal a very troubling development that cannot continue.
Denver Broncos run defense could not have been more poor in Week 1
This was beyond pathetic. Not only did the Chiefs run for 220 yards against Denver, but Kenneth Walker III, the team's major free agency addition, managed to have the best game of his career, as he ran for 173 yards on just 23 carries, which was good for 7.5 yards per carry.
He had a 60-yard touchdown run as well. Even Patrick Mahomes added another 23 rushing yards and a touchdown himself. Rookie Emmett Johnson ran for 24 yards on eight carries. Despite Denver being among the better run defenses in the NFL in recent years, that could not have been further from the truth here in Week 1.
The Broncos defense has been billed as one of the better units in the NFL for multiple years now, and while the team has ranked 3rd in points allowed per game in each of the last two years, there has seemed to be some meat left on the bone as this unit gets further into the season.
Denver does have a lighter defense and excels at rushing the passer - this unit is not necessarily built to withstand a heavy dosage of the run game, and that showed in Week 1. If this is how the run defense is going to play out this year, the Broncos chances of making the playoffs will simply not exist.
We did see the run defense fall apart a bit in the playoffs last year, too, as Denver allowed 183 yards to the Buffalo Bills and 141 to the New England Patriots. With this unit now having lost John Franklin-Myers and Dre Greenlaw in the offseason, we could be (unfortunately) approaching a phase where the unit might not be as tough against the run as they need to be.
Hopefully Week 2 and beyond changes this, but this troubling defensive trend simply cannot continue.
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