1) Both QBs are coming off major injuries<\/p>\n
Patrick Mahomes<\/a>\u00a0is set to make his much-anticipated return<\/a> after tearing his ACL<\/a> in Week 15 last season. His reward for working his way back to the field in roughly nine months? Facing a ferocious Denver defense that has led the league in sacks for two straight years. He will also be without left tackle\u00a0Josh Simmons<\/a>\u00a0due to a back injury, putting undrafted rookie Kahlil Benson<\/a>\u00a0in line to serve as his blindside blocker. It\u2019s a heck of a test, but the two-time Most Valuable Player is as capable as anyone of working his way through it. Whereas Mahomes didn\u2019t play at all in the preseason, Bo Nix<\/a>\u00a0suited up for two drives in Denver\u2019s second preseason game as part of his process of coming back from a broken ankle<\/a> suffered in the Divisional Round. He looked comfortable in the limited action, going 6 of 9 for 76 yards and a touchdown, but he wasn\u2019t required to move around a ton and test out his mobility. It\u2019ll be the real deal against the Chiefs, who will do their best to flush him out and make him uncomfortable.<\/p>\n 2) Broncos, Chiefs taking different backfield approaches<\/p>\n Denver enters the season with a deep, versatile running back room. J.K. Dobbins<\/a>\u00a0and RJ Harvey<\/a>, who combined for 1,705 scrimmage yards and 16 scores last season, are back atop the depth chart. Dobbins is the better all-around back, but he\u2019s struggled to stay on the field throughout his career, as evidenced by the running back missing the Broncos\u2019 final nine games last season, including playoffs. He nonetheless led the team in rushing yards as Harvey proved dynamic in the passing game but took time to find his footing. They won\u2019t be powering Denver\u2019s ground game alone, though. Despite being listed third on the depth chart, rookie Jonah Coleman<\/a>\u00a0has the talent to carve out a role sooner rather than later, giving Sean Payton three ball-carriers with which to attack Kansas City\u2019s front. The Chiefs are likely to feature more of a solo act. After missing out on playing in the Super Bowl for just the second time in seven years, they signed the Super Bowl LX MVP, Kenneth Walker III<\/a>. It\u2019s been a while since Andy Reid\u2019s Chiefs utilized a true workhorse running back, such as when Kareem Hunt<\/a>\u00a0shouldered the load during his first stint in Kansas City or Jamaal Charles spearheaded the attack during Reid\u2019s early years with the club. Both produced tremendous results, and now 2026 figures to be the KWIII show. He\u2019ll play a vital role in helping the offense function at a high level while Patrick Mahomes gets fully back to himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1) Both QBs are coming off major injuries Patrick Mahomes\u00a0is set to make his much-anticipated return after tearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":999805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1717,1227,925,258,7,17425,601,14706,110,9295,5551,14346,88,6,609,499,1032],"class_list":["post-999804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-alohi-gilman","tag-around-the-nfl","tag-bo-nix","tag-denver-broncos","tag-football","tag-game-preview","tag-j-k-dobbins","tag-jaylen-waddle","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-kenneth-walker-iii","tag-ljarius-sneed","tag-mansoor-delane","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-no-minute","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-rj-harvey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117264486484811818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999804","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=999804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/999805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}