Are the Broncos legit? With Chiefs in town, prove it

AI-assisted summary
• Despite an 8-2 record and a seven-game winning streak, the Broncos are considered underdogs at home against the 5-4 Chiefs.
• Denver’s defense is on pace to break the NFL single-season sack record, a key factor in their strategy against quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
• Coach Sean Payton acknowledges the team must improve, particularly on offense, to be considered legitimate contenders.

ENGLEWOOD, CO – Pressure?

That might be a keyword around the Denver Broncos headquarters about now, and not just because a dominant defense has unleashed so much heat on quarterbacks that it is on pace to one-up the NFL single-season sack record set by the great ’84 Bears defense.

The Broncos are about to play the franchise’s biggest game in nearly a decade – since another signature defense carried Peyton Manning to a crown in Super Bowl 50 – and there’s great anticipation about whether they will pass this serious litmus test.

No, there’s no parade on tap. The Broncos can’t win the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Yet here come the Kansas City Chiefs.

And not just the typical Chiefs, who have owned the division with nine straight AFC West titles and almost never lose after a bye week. These are the desperate Chiefs (5-4), who have played in the last three Super Bowls but wouldn’t even be in the dance if the AFC playoffs started today. That makes them extra dangerous.

Believe in the Broncos? AFC West leaders enter Sunday as underdogs

The Broncos (8-2) started the week with a share of the NFL’s best record. They are holding down first place, have won seven consecutive games and have the league’s longest home winning streak, taking 10 in a row. Good stuff.

And they are still listed as underdogs on their own turf.

To flip that, it’s a given that the Broncos will need a whole lot of pressure – on Patrick Mahomes – to illustrate just how well they can measure up. That’s always key to the formula against the NFL’s best quarterback. But given the struggles of Denver’s offense maybe there’s an added layer of pressure on a defense that has produced 46 sacks through 10 games.

“I wouldn’t say extra pressure,” Broncos linebacker Nik Bonitto told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday. “I feel that’s kind of the mindset that we come out with anyway. We love it when we have the opportunity to go and get stops, whenever it is, whether we’re up 40, down 40, a tie game. Just looking for opportunities always to show our style of football.”

Denver’s style. You’ve heard of killer instinct? Well, the Broncos have demonstrated quite the survival instinct this season. When pushed into corners, they’ve stood up to pressure points. They’ve rallied from way down, won the close ones, won ugly, barely won and even lost when they probably should have won.

And won when booed, too.

It all fuels the essential question: Are the Broncos legitimate contenders?

This would be a fine time to prove it. At least until further notice.

Sean Payton: ‘We’ll play in bigger games.’ But not without improvement

“You’ve worked hard to put yourself in a position to play a game like that at home,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said earlier this week. “We’ll play in bigger games. I say that all the time. ‘We’re going to play in bigger games,’ but this is the next one, and this is a (Chiefs) team that’s playing really well right now. We can see that. So, we’re going to have to be on point.”

This will not be the week for another sluggish start for Payton’s offense, even though they have won the close games that they were more likely to lose last season. He knows. For all the resilience, and for second-year quarterback Bo Nix’s ability to raise his game in crunch time, the Broncos need to, well, relieve the pressure with better starts.

“To go where we want to go,” Payton said, “there has to be improvement and certainly we understand that.”

The recent history against the Chiefs is worth noting. Mahomes didn’t play in last season’s regular-season finale (a 38-0 Denver win, with Kansas City resting starters as it had already secured a No. 1 seed), yet in the past three times he faced the Broncos the Chiefs averaged just 14.6 points per game.

Then again, that doesn’t automatically extend into the upcoming matchup. The Chiefs have fortified their receiving corps while Denver is expected to be without the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, cornerback Patrick Surtain II, for a third consecutive game as he nurses a pectoral injury.

“I take each game by the month at a time,” Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said on Thursday, pondering the chess match against Chiefs coach Andy Reid. “I’m looking at what I’ve done over the last month, and he has to do that also. Pat hadn’t played in two weeks, so what are we doing without Pat? So, that’s Andy’s concern, also. It goes both ways.”

Besides, with Mahomes in the mix – his uncanny knack for extending plays fueled by an extra layer of desperation – the pressure certainly goes both ways, too.

Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on  X: @JarrettBell