The Denver Broncos know where they will be spending their Christmas this year. Though it is the “most wonderful time of the year”, the Broncos will be in Kansas City to face the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. The news was made official on Monday night.
While the league will release its full schedule on Wednesday night, that game has been reported as taking place as the last leg of a Christmas Day tripleheader. Some fans may look at it as a tough way to spend their holiday, but the Broncos should treat it as a huge opportunity.
The Broncos have had a rough recent history in terms of playing games at Arrowhead Stadium. The Broncos have never fared well on the road against the Chiefs, but they have currently lost their last nine games there, dating back to September 2015.
It has been a house of horrors for the Broncos and that can be traced back, at least in recent memory, to Christmas night in 2016.
That night, the Broncos, the defending Super Bowl champions, went into Arrowhead at 8-6 and pushing for a playoff spot. But after Tyreek Hill had already scored on a 70-yard touchdown, Travis Kelce caught this short pass and raced 80 yards for another touchdown to put the Chiefs up 21-7…. in the first quarter.
To add insult to injury, the Chiefs, leading 27-10 with less than two minutes to play, had defensive tackle Dontari Poe come in and throw a jump pass for a touchdown. That put the final nail in an embarrassing 33-10 loss for the Broncos which all but extinguished their hopes for the postseason.
The Broncos have not won in Arrowhead since, and it’s impossible to forget how things went last year.
Rookie Bo Nix led a masterful late-game drive for the Broncos, setting up Wil Lutz for the game-winning field goal. The Chiefs had other ideas.
CHIEFS BLOCK A FIELD GOAL TO STAY UNDEFEATED 🤯
(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/YB9ozYBKRg
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 10, 2024
It was a gut-wrenching loss for the Broncos, but one a young team almost always has to go through in order to get to where it is looking to go. There are chinks in the armor of the current version of the Chiefs, led by Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, those were exposed in Super Bowl LIX by the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Chiefs are now beatable. It doesn’t seem anywhere near as daunting as it did even two years ago for the Broncos to go into Arrowhead Stadium and get a win. A changing of the guard could be coming in the AFC West with Sean Payton’s upstart Broncos looking to claim the throne from the team that has won the division nine years in a row. Only the New England Patriots from 2009-2019 have a longer streak.
Instead of this being a Christmas nightmare, this could be the Broncos’ statement game this season.
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