Some teams play sound football every week. They are well coached, well prepared, and have professionals at all levels ready to rise to the occasion.

And other teams are teams like the Denver Broncos.

We’re 5 years into this nonsense since Super Bowl 50 (the last time where I could say that my football team was well coached, well prepared, and had professionals at all levels ready to rise to the occasion).

The one good thing about playing the well coached and well prepared Kansas City Chief team who has professionals ready to rise to the occasion at all levels of their roster is that it shows this team exactly who they are and where they are at.

Anyone else want to agree with our fan fave Garrett Bolles about KC not being any more spectacular than the Broncos? Those of you who do, please do me a favor and skip the comment section in this one. The adults are talking today.

Defense

Here’s the bright, shining star of the Denver Bronco team. The one phase of the game who came to play this week. The whole team gets my criticism because at the end of the day the whole team earns a win or a loss. You can have a killer defense and still suck (again, see the past handful of years for some examples of this).

So while I have many criticisms of Vic Fangio, how he actually prepares and calls his defense is not one of them. This group was here to play and it is a crying shame that the offense and kicking units (because they are not special...that’s for damned sure) are so woefully behind them in execution, preparation, and ability.

Front 7

Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images

Bradley Chubb isn’t back yet...but I can see him getting closer. He didn’t jump off the stat sheet, but his sack was timely and could have made a difference if the offense could actually score points. He is getting back to being a disruptive force with a TFL and a couple of QHs.

Alexander Johnson is a force. He forced a fumble early with an aggressive swipe after a wide open chef caught the ball. It is good to see the defense improving in creating turnovers. This kind of personal effort is something they’ve been lacking earlier in the season.

Dre’Mont Jones great rush up front with a swim move to get inside on Patrick Mahomes. I’m honestly stoked to see someone other than Shelby Harris getting inside pressure. He also had a TFL and a QH.

Secondary

Can we talk a second about Bryce Callahan? The guy is absolutely killing it. Sure, the child abuser got 6 catches and a TD, but he was held to only 55 yards. That was largely because Callahan was up to the task that most NFL defenses aren’t: keeping Hill contained. He was step for step with him on many targets where in the past we’d see our defense giving up a TD (AMARITE Chris Harris Jr.?)

The only other thing I will point out about the secondary as a whole is that there wasn’t a lot going on back there. That’s a credit to them. That shows they were on their assignments and kept KC pretty much bottled up. If the Broncos ever get an offense, this defense is absolutely capable of helping earn a win against them.

Offense

Why do we come out throwing? It makes little to no sense. We saw the Broncos play the chefs in the snow last year and Lock had trouble with accuracy. So this year we come out and ask him to sling the ball over and over. It led to a hole. Why not run the ball and establish the ground game? Then try easy passes off play action.

Instead we have 2nd and 10 play action passes when no one believes for a second that we’re running. This one key item became absolutely maddening to me as the game wore on. Why? BECAUSE THE RUN GAME KEPT WORKING!

Our team averaged 5.7 ypc as a whole. It was snowing.

Congratulations, Pat Shurmur...you done played yourself.

Quarterbacks

Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images

Welcome to the No Bull Review where I do my level best to keep it real. I’m as likely as any to get optimistic in the offseason and during training camp. But we’re 6 weeks in now and it is time to get real about the Broncos QB situation.

Drew Lock is no better than Trevor Siemian (and I know there are some of you out there a bit backwards...let me be clear: this is not a compliment). I don’t mean they have similar skill sets (Lock has a bigger arm and is a better athlete for instance). I mean they both kinda suck at being a starter.

I’m not completely giving up on Lock yet, but I honestly expect to see a heck of a lot more from a guy that supposedly was dialed in all offseason asking the right questions to the right former quarterbacks. I’m honestly curious as to what exactly he’s been working so hard at. I don’t see that much improvement from last year.

He isn’t progressing through reads.

He is locking onto his first read way too much and is paying for it.

He’s throwing way too often to that same read even when they are triple covered.

He’s not understanding what the defense is doing (or he’d be looking at different reads at times).

He’s not audibling out of bad situations (though this may be on the coordinator).

And before anyone starts with talking about the poor tools he has around him, let me tell you that the tools out there weren’t dropping balls this game...he was missing them completely.

Hopefully this all can be chalked up to him playing in the snow...that’s the only hope there is for those of you out there who are Drew Lock fanatics. I’m darn near ready to talk about the next option if his performances don’t start making some pretty sound improvements in the coming weeks.

Line

The run game worked. The pass game didn’t because most of the passes were overthrown. This is not something that is caused by the line. I think the line did a pretty fine job overall. There were penalties we could do without but they weren’t complete trash like the first 3 games of the season.

Running Backs

Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images

Phillip Lindsay should have had twice the carries he got in this game. I understand that you paid Melvin Gordon a bunch of money and all, but you can just watch the game and see which one is a more impactful running back. He’s got too much skill to be sitting on the sideline while your idiot OC tries to make Lock into a successful passer when he’s so obviously not.

Receivers

I wish I had a lot of content to write about the receivers, but sadly they are hampered by a QB who can’t get them the ball. I think Tim Patrick, Jerry Jeudy, and Albert Okwuegbunam all had solid games. I think Noah Fant was gutting it out but should have sat this one out. The offense at the end of the day didn’t do much of note and it mainly had to do with situations completely out of the receivers’ control.

Kicking Teams

The team played absolutely pathetic coverage on the TD return in the 1st half. This is not surprising to me at all. Tom McMahon has been one of the worst special teams coordinators in the NFL for years and never has his units ready to play competent football. He hasn’t been worth the paycheck he’s gotten in the past few years and I’m not going to say anything other than that he should have been fired a season and a half ago.

Final Thoughts

Hats off to the Kansas City Chiefs. Honestly, they play like a powerhouse NFL football team should. They have superb coaching and a talented roster up and down. Their GM is also absolutely killing it at reloading after a Super Bowl winning season (which can be a huge challenge).

The Denver Broncos need to wake the heck up. And when I say that, I mean the Bowlen family. This horrendous season of ineptitude from GM all the way down to the players has gone on far too long. They have no QB of the future. They got rid of the OC of the future. They are clinging to a KT coordinator that has had his units at the wrong end of the special teams stat sheet his whole tenure with the Broncos.

Yes, I’m a bit salty about losing this bad to the Chiefs. Yes, the team can get it back together and maybe even improve over last year. But the core problems are there and some more change is going to need to happen before they get this offense right and the team all back on the same winning page.