Kenneth Walker showed the Broncos what a missing piece actually looks like

The Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs both made dramatic moves in the offseason to address their offense's biggest weaknesses. Unfortunately, only the Chiefs decided to put their "missing piece" on display in Week 1, and the Broncos didn't.

While Kenneth Walker racked up 191 yards from scrimmage and a pair of touchdowns in the Chiefs' dominating victory over the Broncos, Jaylen Waddle finished the game with just one catch for two yards on three targets.

Both players represented each team's blockbuster move response to their most obvious perceived weak spots, so why did Kansas City's plan for involving Walker -- and turning that weakness around -- look so much better than Denver's plan for getting Waddle involved?

Broncos have a number of dirty hands when it comes to Jaylen Waddle's disappointing debut

Let's make one thing clear right out of the gates: Jaylen Waddle is not to blame for his underwhelming debut.

Waddle did drop a key 3rd-down pass from Bo Nix that would have been absolutely huge, but he was only targeted three times in the game. There are two primary culprits responsible for that: Davis Webb and Bo Nix.

If Waddle was supposed to be the missing piece for the Broncos' offense, or the "Stefon Diggs" to Bo Nix's "Josh Allen", you could have fooled me.

Watching the game back, it's clear that the Broncos had some plays in mind for Waddle, but nothing materialized because Bo Nix either didn't see him or didn't have enough time in the pocket. There was nothing about the operation of the Denver Broncos' offense against the Chiefs that was crisp or in rhythm whatsoever.

The Broncos traded 1st- and 3rd-round picks to get Waddle from the Miami Dolphins. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck were joking during the Monday Night Football broadcast that Sean Payton told his wife to take Waddle in her fantasy drafts.

They have gushed over this guy's speed and impact on the offense all offseason. Bo Nix himself said that Waddle was bringing an element of explosiveness to the table that the team had been missing since he got to Denver.

So why was Pat Bryant targeted twice as many times as Waddle?

With all due respect to Bryant, who was the talk of training camp for the Broncos, it just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense that the Broncos designed a handful of plays to get the ball into Bryant's hands so quickly, but not Waddle.

And obviously there is a difference in the way the Chiefs approached defending Waddle and Bryant. Waddle draws more attention because he's a more proven player. But that doesn't change the fact that it seemed like there were more "scripted" plays to get Bryant the ball than there were for Waddle, which is an unacceptable strategy.

The Broncos should not be walking away from many games this season in which Pat Bryant, Evan Engram, and RJ Harvey are out-targeting Waddle. Or even Courtland Sutton, for that matter. Waddle was targeted on as many passing plays against the Chiefs as Adam Trautman.

Chiefs got the most out of Kenneth Walker against the Broncos

Over the past two seasons, the Chiefs have been one of the worst running teams in the NFL. So what did they do? They went out and got Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker, brought back Eric Bieniemy, and changed their offensive approach.

We saw the Chiefs running from under center last night, a wrinkle that hasn't been there very much in the past couple of seasons. Walker absolutely took over this game, and it was almost shocking that the Chiefs didn't have him run 33 times instead of 23, because the Broncos couldn't stop it whenever they would hand it to him.

Perhaps the recovery of Patrick Mahomes played a role in it, but the concerted effort to have this game flow through Walker was enviable to see. The Chiefs' commitment to the running game is something Broncos fans wanted to see from their team, but more than just an overarching strategy to run the ball more, it was Kansas City's commitment to showing off their new weapon.

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