It was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who helped propel Muhammad Ali over Sonny Liston in their famous heavyweight bout. It’ll take the same kind of blessing for the Denver Broncos to beat the Kansas City Chiefs this week, according to the league’s official website. All five editors for the league’s official website have picked the Chiefs to win against the Broncos in Week 11.
Broncos vs. Chiefs
NFL.com’s Tom Blair did the honors of explaining the league’s official website’s decision.
“I almost tricked myself into going with the Broncos and their superpowered defense at home. Could Denver’s pass rush keep Patrick Mahomes from getting back into the Master of the Universe groove that helped him power a three-game win streak for K.C.? Sure, maybe. Can Bo Nix give Andy Reid the fifth ever post-bye week loss of his decades-long head-coaching career? That’s a tougher question to answer,” Blair wrote.
While being fictitious, the Broncos may give Reid his fifth-ever post-bye week loss. We’ll have more on this later in the week, but the Chiefs’ best pass catcher is a slot wide receiver. That means the Broncos can sit in man coverage on the boundary and have a single high safety. The individual defensive matchups favor the Broncos over the Chiefs.
Inside the red zone, it’s going to come down to the pass rush. The Chiefs will almost certainly run pick routes to spring WR Rashee Rice open from inside the slot. It’s going to be a fun cat-and-mouse game to watch.
Other than that, it’s going to come down to the Broncos’ offense and the Chiefs’ defense. Blair has the Broncos winning the matchup 23-20. In fact, he continued.
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“All due respect to Nix and Sean Payton for putting together an exciting season so far, but this figures to be the Biggest Test Yet of Denver’s legitimacy. And I would feel a lot better about the Broncos’ chances if I knew they were going to have Patrick Surtain II and J.K. Dobbins on the field, as they did for their only victory to date against a team that is currently in the playoff picture, a four-point squeaker over the ever-angsty Eagles back in Week 5,” Blair wrote.
Not having Surtain II won’t matter as much this week against an offense featuring a slot WR as their best pass catcher. And RJ Harvey should fill in nicely for Dobbins for a week or two. The former was drafted in a starter round. One thing we can agree on: this is going to be America’s game of the week for a reason.