Kansas City, Mo. – If it’s December, and it was. If it was Arrowhead Stadium, and it was. Then there are no ifs.
The Kansas City Chiefs win.
The Denver Broncos may have put out all the stops, calling reverses and screens and Bradlee specials. But when it mattered most, win or else, the Broncos were nowhere near able to stop the hungry Chiefs.
In a wildly exciting, hard-fought, back-and-forth game, the desperate Chiefs managed to defeat the suddenly secondary suspect Broncos 31-27 on a chilly December Sunday before a bundled 78,261 at Arrowhead.
So what else is new? The win was the 17th in a row by the Chiefs in December home games. The Broncos were the victims for the fourth time in that streak, which started in 1997.
This time the Broncos flew home believing they were defeated not by the Chiefs but by themselves.
“They got 14 points off miscommunication,” Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams said. “Take those away and it’s a whole different ballgame.”
Indeed, the most disturbing element of this game may not have been the loss itself – at 9-3, Denver continues to lead the AFC West by a game with three of its final four games against poor-record opponents – but how the Chiefs exposed the Broncos’ defense, particularly in the secondary.
Like no other quarterback before in this 2005 season, the Chiefs’ Trent Green spotted vulnerabilities in the Broncos’ secondary on the intermediate and deep routes.
“Their linebackers have so much speed, we felt we had to back them off (in coverage) as far as we could,” Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil said.
After Broncos running back Mike Anderson took a screen pass and sped 66 yards for the game’s first touchdown, the Chiefs came right back with a 41-yard pass from Green to a wide-open Dante Hall. On the play, Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey released Hall about 10 yards down the sideline. As it turned out, Hall was released to freedom. No one was within the Kansas-Missouri state line of Hall when he caught it.
“Everyone was playing different coverages on that side of the field,” Broncos safety John Lynch said.
The Chiefs took a 14-7 lead when running back Larry Johnson bulled in from the 1-yard line, and Broncos linebacker Al Wilson went berserk. The Broncos had just stopped Johnson on first-and- goal and second-and-goal, but on third- and-goal the Broncos made two personnel changes.
This brought not new blood, but confusion at the goal line as Johnson scored. Wilson reacted visibly, walking toward the sideline while pointing and yelling at the coaches for the late change.
“I won’t talk about that,” Wilson said. “It was between me and my coaches and me being a football player. It was me being firing up at the time.”
The Broncos tied it on Anderson’s second touchdown, this one a 1-yard run, but the Chiefs came right back on a 25-yard touchdown pass from Green to tight end Tony Gonzalez. Again, Bailey was the closest defender and again there were was a breakdown.
“I was supposed to have Gonzalez on that play,” Williams said.
Counting the touchdown that popped Wilson’s top, the Broncos surrendered 21 points to communication failures. Add the interception quarterback Jake Plummer threw on second-and-goal in the first half, and the Broncos had 28 points worth of headshaking ifs, ands or buts.
“We made some mistakes we haven’t made this season,” Wilson said. “You’ve got to move forward and clean it up. We made some adjustments at halftime, but we let things slip away in the first half.”
Much was made about Johnson finishing with 140 yards rushing against a Denver defense that came in ranked No. 1 against the run. His biggest run was a 4-yard touchdown for the winning points with 9:58 remaining.
“Everybody, including the media, expects me to fold and think that their linebacking crew was going to shut us down,” said Johnson, who has amassed 709 yards rushing in his five games as a starter this season.
But Johnson had only 50 yards entering the fourth quarter. Until then, it was the 253 yards passing by Green that had Denver mostly playing catch-up.
“Every defense has a weakness, and they caught us in a few defenses where that was our weakness at the time,” Williams said. “But as a corner, I feel we’ve got to adjust.”
It would be hard to find a more entertaining game. The score was 7-7 after the first quarter, 21-21 at halftime and 24-24 after the third quarter. The Broncos tied the game late in the first half when backup quarterback Bradlee Van Pelt made his NFL debut. With Plummer split out wide to the left, Van Pelt ran off right tackle to score on a 7-yard draw.
“It wasn’t as simple as it looked,” Van Pelt said. “I’m not going to give away any secrets, but I think all of you could do it off that formation.”
Denver’s loss was cemented at the two-minute warning when a replay review overturned Anderson’s fourth- down carry for what was initially called a first down at Denver’s 47-yard line.
A second was put back on the clock, but not the yard in Denver’s favor.
By itself, the loss hardly dooms the Broncos. Their 9-3 record is one game better than Kansas City and San Diego, both 8-4, in the AFC West. A win, however, would have given Denver a three- game lead on the Chiefs with four to go.
A win at Arrowhead in December? It seems only the Chiefs should expect it.
“We had the opportunity to settle some things and we let it get away,” Lynch said. “It’s disappointing we didn’t play as clean as we should have, but give credit to them. They were desperate and they played like it.”
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
Grades:
Offense: B
Denver moved the ball well, but had to settle for two field goals by Jason Elam in the second half. That hurt. Field goals weren’t going to get it done in this game. In a game in which Denver did what it wanted, what will be remembered are the missed opportunities.
Defense: D
This was the Broncos’ worst defensive performance of the season. Chiefs running back Larry Johnson rumbled for 140 yards, only the second runner to break the 100-yard barrier against Denver, which entered the game with the NFL’s No. 1-ranked run defense. Chiefs quarterback Trent Green completed 16-of-23 passes for 253 yards and made several big plays.
Special teams: C
Dante Hall didn’t kill the Broncos, but Denver was mediocre on special teams. Playing without injured special-teams captain Keith Burns, Denver’s coverage units suffered. Hall averaged 23.8 yards on six kickoff returns.
Coaching: B
The plan was to attack the Chiefs on offense and stop the run on defense. It worked sometimes, but Johnson hurt Denver late. It appeared this loss was more about squandered chances and circumstances than game-planning.
Overall: C
The Broncos played well enough to win and poorly enough to lose. Poetry? No, but it was the bottom line. A win would have knocked Kansas City out of contention and put more pressure on the Chargers. The Broncos still control their destiny after a closely fought game that could have gone either way.
