Chiefs trounced without key players by Broncos in season finale

The Kansas City Chiefs (15-2) drop the season finale against the Broncos (10-7) in Denver, 38-0 with 13 players sitting and five others playing minimally.

If you ever wondered what it might look like if a preseason team went up against a team at full strength, fighting for a playoff spot, we found out on Sunday. With quarterback Carson Wentz leading the way and third-string Chris Oladokun taking over in the fourth quarter, the Kansas City Chiefs (15-2) simply never got anything going and took a beat down by the Denver Broncos (10-7) by a score of 38-0.

The loss had their division rival punching their ticket to the postseason and kept the Cincinnati Bengals (9-8) out of the big dance. The Chiefs only owed one team something in week 18 though, and that was themselves, though. After a 17-week season and with the bye coming way back in week six in mid-October, the Chiefs gave their key and a lot of veteran players a much-needed rest.

“The positive for us was that we got to play a lot of young guys, and that experience is invaluable, especially against a good football team,” head coach Andy Reid said. “We need to do better, obviously, but you know that opportunity, again, is something that's special.”

In total, 13 players were either not active or took a single snap. Those players include Patrick Mahomes, Kareem Hunt, Isiah Pacheco, Hollywood Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Travis Kelce, Jawaan Taylor, Chris Jones, George Karlaftis, Nick Bolton, Drue Tranquill, Justin Reid and Trent McDuffie. Hunt, Brown, Hopkins, Bolton, Tranquill and Reid suited up but never saw the field. Hopkins had $1,000,000 to play for in incentives, with $500,000 coming with just one touchdown, but the Chiefs were never in a position to deploy him.

“Today obviously, was not great but we know what's ahead of us as a team,” Wentz said. “Pat, everybody, you know, all the starters, they know what's ahead of us and where we're trying to go and what we're capable of doing, so, (the) mindset is on that.”

Coming into the day the biggest storyline was always going to be whether or not left tackle D.J. Humphries was going to hold up and perform well enough to unseat Joe Thuney as the left tackle, so the veteran played nearly the entire game. Having just played around three quarters this season after coming off a torn ACL on New Year's Eve last season, Humphries got one series with the starting interior offensive line in an attempt to gain cohesiveness. After going three-and-out on the opening drive, Thuney, Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith wound up getting just three snaps in though.

“It was good for (Humphries) to get the reps in there,” Reid said. “That's a plus, yeah for sure. We'll just see. I've got to go back and look at all of it and evaluate it. Right now, it's too early to tell you.”

Other key players that saw minimal time were wide receiver Xavier Worthy (1) and tight end Noah Gray (4). All in all, that is 18 players that did not play most or all of the game, 12 from the offense and six from the defense. Humphries and tackle Wanya Morris book-ended the offensive line for Wentz and Oladokun for nearly 100 percent of the snaps, while wide receivers one through three, in order of snap counts were Justin Watson, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Nikko Remigio, all taking at least 91 percent of the snaps. Remigio led the team in receiving with two catches for 48 yards. It should also be noted that rookie opening night left tackle, Kingsley Suamataia replaced Thuney and received 91 percent of the game's snaps at left guard.

“Nothing jumped out at me that said negative on (Suamataia), but I've got to look at the tape and I'll get with (Offensive line coach Andy Heck) on it,” Reid said. “That was good to get him in there, though. He's one of the guys who was good to get the experience for him, for sure.”

On offense, it was the Carson show for most of the game, with Wentz garnering over 85 percent of the snaps and running back Carson Steele tallying 68 percent. Lining up with a bunch of other backups, the two never got anything going. Wentz went 10 for 17 and 98 yards after getting sacked on four and getting hit on nine of his 21 drop backs. Steele got eight carries to gain 25 yards, good for 3.1 yards per clip. The duo simply could not get much going behind a backup offensive line. Wentz was only allotted 17 pass attempts and Steele eight carries, which goes to show you just how out of sync the offense was.

“Obviously not good enough,” Wentz said. “We didn't play great as a team, I didn't play my best either but yeah, I mean, (you) move on from this one pretty quick. You know, it was fun to get out there, fun to get myself, a lot of guys a chance to just go out there and compete but obviously, they were the better team today.”

The box score was as bad as the actual score for both the offense and the defense. The Chiefs had so many three-and-outs that Kansas City only ran 33 offensive plays and Denver had such an easy time that they ran 72 offensive plays. The most telling stats were that the Chiefs were one for nine on third downs with the Broncos being 10 for 14 and that Denver controlled the ball for nearly 42 minutes, 22 longer than Kansas City.

The rival out west outgained the Chiefs 479 to 98, dampening a lot of the season-long stats for the reigning back-to-back champs. Even with all of that, perhaps the most concerning piece of the game was when Harrison Butker missed his lone field goal attempt from 51 yards out. Butker has now missed two field goals and an extra point since returning from his knee injury. The veteran who has seemingly never missed in clutch moments deserves the benefit of the doubt, but it is something to keep an eye on.

Not having a pass rush or Trent McDuffie will do this to you, but a defense that had safeties Jaden Hicks and Bryan Cook for 100 percent of the game and cornerbacks Nazeeh Johnson and Joshua Williams for most of it, got torched by rookie quarterback Bo Nix for 321 yards and four touchdowns. It cannot be overstated enough how much of a difference it makes when a team that has nothing to play for was going up against a team that was fighting for their playoff lives though. For what it is worth, with Cam Jones, Joshua Uche and Leo Chenal as its three main linebackers, they did limit Denver’s top two rushers to 2.4 and 2.8 yards per carry.

Charles Omenihu was the only starter or key defensive lineman of note who got a lot of snaps in this one as he continued to try and get his feet under him after tearing his ACL in last year's AFC Championship game. The Chiefs failed to register a single sack or even a quarterback hit, leaving the secondary exposed to the likes of four different Broncos receivers tallying 50 yards or more, including Courtland Sutton racking up five catches for 98 yards.

What is next for the Broncos is a Sunday noon CDT. matchup with the AFC’s two seed, the Buffalo Bills (13-4) in the Wild Card Round. If the Broncos were to pull off the upset (BUF -9), they would be the next team the Chiefs would face on Saturday, January 18th. If Buffalo takes care of business, Kansas City will play the lowest seed of the winners from the matchups between the Pittsburgh Steelers (6) and the Baltimore Ravens (3) or the Los Angeles Chargers (5) and the Houston Texans (4) in the Divisional Round.