Kansas City Chiefs (0-2) lose to the Denver Broncos (1-1) 6 to 9.
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Yesterday's game was comforting and upsetting in different ways. Comforting in the sense that the Chiefs played pretty damn well without Trent Green in the lineup and took the Broncos to overtime at Invesco Field. The game is also a bit upsetting because the Chiefs came so close to stealing one from the Broncos at home. That would have been the ideal situation- leave Invesco field 1-1 and drop the Broncos to 0-2.
First, lets run down the good points. Damon Huard did EXACTLY what he needed to do this game. Huard was 17 of 23 for 133 yards and NO INTs. I kept telling myself before yesterday that if Huard can just minimize his mistakes, we have a shot to win. Huard's only mistake was a dumb one- catching a pass that was batted back to him and then fumbling it. Still, I'm willing to chalk that up to a guy who hasn't played in 6 years. Huard was sharp, conservative and somewhat mobile.
Larry Johnson was, well, Larry Johnson. Rushing for 126 yards and catching for another 41 more, the only thing LJ didn't give us was a TD. LJ was reassuringly back to his old form- bruising tacklers and turning those 2 yard gains into 4 or 5 yard gains.
The defense was the most improved part of the team over last week. We held the Broncos to a dismal 3-14 on 3rd down conversions. The Broncos only had 318 total yards to our 276. I found myself increasingly confident (or was that the beer?) about our defense as the game wore on.
Okay, quickly on to the bad. Tony Gonzalez was nowhere. He had two catches for 7 yards. One of those was a catch for no gain if I remember. The Broncos, doing their best impression of a running by committee, put up 145 yards rushing. This was disappointing because the Broncos run game is about 30% end-arounds and gimmicky rushing plays.
Finally, where the hell was Ty Law on Javon Walker's overtime catch? He claimed he was pushed and I've read some other mentions of that but still. I saw Ty Law burned a few times on fairly simple routes. After this past week, I would have to say that Ty Law has something to prove come Week 4.
I am taking away from this game a renewed confidence after last week. I consider our Week 4 home game against the San Francisco 49ers, after the bye week, a must-win. We almost stole one from Denver this past week and I would have loved to keep the Broncos winless this season while going to .500 ourselves. Forget Oakland. Keep an eye on San Diego after their win this week. Denver will be fighting the Chiefs for the AFC West crown.