The Denver Broncos didn’t just lose to the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday night. They posted the worst missed-tackle game since at least 2018 — 247 missed-tackle yards surrendered in a 31-10 defeat at Arrowhead Stadium, the most Next Gen Stats has logged since it started tracking the number in 2018.
One number stands out from that box score more than any other: eight.
Eight different Broncos defenders missed tackles, several more than once, according to Next Gen Stats. That’s not one cornerback having a bad night. That’s a full-unit pattern, and full-unit patterns don’t fix themselves by Week 2. Spread it across a defensive line, a linebacker corps, and a secondary all at once and you’ve ruled out the easy explanations — no single position group can carry the blame, and no single coaching fix addresses eight different players missing assignments in the same three hours. Swipe covered this matchup before kickoff in our preview of this same Monday night, and nothing in it hinted at a defense about to come apart like this.
https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/2099700435816992838
Kansas City made every missed tackle count. Kenneth Walker III ran for a career-high 173 yards and a 60-yard touchdown, added a 2-yard touchdown catch, and finished with 191 yards from scrimmage. He carried the ball on the first four plays of the game and on seven of the seven snaps that made up Kansas City’s opening touchdown drive, per NFL.com. Patrick Mahomes barely needed to throw; Walker did the damage on the ground while Kansas City’s quarterback eased back into rhythm.
Safety Brandon Jones and cornerback Riley Moss drew the specific blame afterward. Moss alone missed two tackles, per Yahoo Sports. Pinning 28 missed tackles on two defensive backs is convenient. It’s also wrong.
The internet noticed.
https://twitter.com/NFLMemes/status/2099704634977718493
Vance Joseph’s defense ranked third in points allowed over the previous two seasons, according to NFL.com’s breakdown of the loss. Monday’s collapse is a far cry from the version of this defense that looked fine in August, when Denver’s front looked like the reason to trust this team’s floor. Units that finish top three in the league don’t usually forget how to tackle overnight, which is exactly why this Broncos defense’s collapse against the Chiefs is worth more attention than a normal season-opening blowout. Either the tape from the last two seasons was flattering Denver’s talent more than its scheme, or something about facing a healthy Kansas City offense hitting its stride at Arrowhead exposed a weakness that had been sitting there the whole time.
My mom spent thirty years as a school librarian, and she has a theory about kids who stop finishing a series: it’s rarely the last book that loses them, it’s the four quiet, unremarkable ones before it. Denver’s tackling problem reads the same way. One Monday doesn’t explain 28 missed tackles spread across eight defenders on a unit that had been elite for two years.
Kenneth Walker III earned a real career night, and great backs occasionally have those against good defenses too. But career nights don’t usually arrive with eight separate missed-tackle problems attached to them, and Vance Joseph’s group produced both in the same prime-time game.
That combination doesn’t stay contained to one Monday.
