It\u2019s an early rivalry week in the football season for the Kansas City area, apparently.<\/p>\n
To open his press conference Friday afternoon, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy appropriately labeled the Chiefs-Broncos matchup ahead of his first game on the Kansas City sidelines since 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cChiefs versus the Broncos, an old-school AFC West blood match here,\u201d Bieniemy said.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty to focus on in the game, but the Chiefs\u2019 offense \u2014 led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes in his first game back from knee surgery \u2014 has an especially stiff challenge to begin the season. The Broncos were a top-3 defense last year in points and yards allowed.<\/p>\n
Both Bieniemy and head coach Andy Reid understand why the Denver defense has been one of the NFL\u2019s best. It starts with defensive coordinator Vance Joseph.<\/p>\n
\u201cVance is a sharp guy, and he\u2019s got a nice package full of blitzes that he has,\u201c Reid told reporters during his press conference on Thursday. \u201dI\u2019m sure he\u2019ll unload a few of them.\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to be able to play fast and not stagger yourself down to where you can\u2019t function with a ghost,\u201d Reid continued. \u201cHe\u2019s got plenty of things he can throw at you for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up front, the Broncos deploy a talented group of pass rushers led by outside linebacker Nik Bonitto; he has 27.5 sacks over the last two regular seasons.<\/p>\n
Bonitto will be joined by defensive lineman Zach Allen and outside linebacker Jonah Elliss as priorities for the Chiefs to handle on pass downs. Outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper, who totaled eight sacks last year, is currently on the Commissioner\u2019s Exempt List.<\/p>\n
For Bieniemy, one word stands out above all else this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cProtect, protect, protect,\u201d Bieniemy said. \u201cWe know [Bonitto] can get after it, we know Zach Allen can get after it\u2026 I know the kid, Cooper, is not playing, who is an outstanding player. The kid, Elliss, is pretty damn good\u2026 They\u2019re good on the line; they\u2019re good on the second level with the backers and, obviously, they have some guys in the back end that can play.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be challenged,\u201d Bieniemy stated. \u201cVJ does a great job, but we want to find a way to make sure we can secure victory, any which way we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s an early rivalry week in the football season for the Kansas City area, apparently. To open his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":998101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[346,7,118,110,80177,922,2438,2437,6],"class_list":["post-998100","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-kansas-city-chiefs-analysis","tag-kansas-city-chiefs-news","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascitychiefs","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117253798866597513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998100","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=998100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}