Although the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 Week 1 victory over the Denver Broncos will be remembered as Kenneth Walker III\u2019s night, after the running back exploded for 173 rushing yards and a touchdown on 23 carries, Andy Reid\u2019s team made an early statement about its ambitions for the season.<\/p>\n
Beyond Walker\u2019s offensive explosion, Kansas City dominated in nearly every area of the game and showcased a defense that could become the key factor in helping the Chiefs return to championship contention.<\/p>\n
Chiefs billionaire family breaks the owner-player barrier in unexpected postgame scene<\/p>\n
The performance of the defense was one of the biggest surprises. Dan Orlovsky was particularly impressed by the way Steve Spagnuolo\u2019s unit attacked Denver\u2019s new offensive coordinator, Davis Webb, from the opening snap during his analysis on NFL Live.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d also say this. I was shocked how good the defense was in Kansas City last night. This was not all about, \u2018Oh my gosh, Davis Webb can\u2019t call plays, and Sean Payton should come save the day.\u2019 That\u2019s going to be a conversation. But the first snap of the game, Spags sends both corners blitzing. Of course he does. I thought the linebackers were outstanding against the run. The coverage on the perimeter. I texted you during the game going, who\u2019s No. 20?\u201d Orlovsky said while discussing Nohl Williams, the Chiefs\u2019 2025 third-round draft pick.<\/p>\n
The former NFL quarterback acknowledged that there were questions about the true level of Kansas City\u2019s defense entering the season, but the performance against Denver completely changed his perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was hopeful that they would run the football. I was. I was way more, I guess, question-mark-centric about the defense. What I watched last night, it felt like a defense that could carry them early on as the offense really starts to settle in. And no question, it\u2019s a championship-caliber defense, at least from what we saw last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the 2025 season, the Broncos\u2019 offense was one of the strengths of Sean Payton\u2019s team, finishing 14th in the NFL in points scored, 11th in passing yards, and 16th in rushing yards.<\/p>\n
That is why holding that offense \u2014 which also added Jaylen Waddle \u2014 to 13.6 points below its previous season average represents a major statement from a Chiefs team that looks more complete, balanced and dangerous in its pursuit of another championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 Week 1 victory over the Denver Broncos will be remembered as Kenneth Walker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1001886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[346,7,118,110,2438,2437,6],"class_list":["post-1001885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-chiefs","tag-football","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascitychiefs","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117277733928167641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1001885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1001886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1001885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1001885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1001885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}