NFL: Coin Toss: Will Denver stop the Mahomes show?

At the end of week 4 in the NFL, there is a division cracker: The Denver Broncos welcome the still undefeated Kansas City Chiefs – and are thus the next team to try to stop Patrick Mahomes and Co.. Does Denver have enough firepower to keep pace with the Chiefs? There will be a discussion at Coin Toss, you can see the game live on DAZN from 2.15 a.m.!

mySPOX-User SoEinSatansbraten: With a bit of luck, the Broncos won the first two games of the season and then, against Baltimore, showed that they still have a lot of weaknesses. Does that look familiar? After a good start in 2017, Denver also broke down completely and finished the season 5-11.

With the Chiefs now – beside the Rams – the probably hottest team of the league comes to Mile High. Patrick Mahomes shows in an impressive way that the decision of the Chiefs to hand over Smith was the only right one for the future of the franchise. Mahomes and the mob of offensive weapons he’s allowed to work with destroy enemy defenses week after week at 9.1 net yards per pass. Denvers (No) Fly Zone is the perfect opponent. After the departure of Aqib Talib, Denver’s Secondary lacks a reliable third cornerback.

Veterans Tramaine Brock and Adam Jones as well as rookie Isaac Yiadom are easy victims for enemy quarterbacks. In one-on-one, Denver passport defenders are beaten regularly. Opposing tight ends this year again look like superstars week after week due to the lack of coverage of the linebackers. So Travis Kelce can especially look forward to the Monday Night Game.

Denvers Pass-Rush around the strong rookie Chubb and the outstanding Von Miller may annoy Mahomes a bit, but Denvers Defense won’t be able to stop this attack. With Hunt, Watkins, Kelce and above all Hill, Mahomes simply has too many and too fast weapons.

Nevertheless, the Broncos have a realistic chance of winning at home. Denver “only” has to hold the opponent’s attack on the side line and score enough points on the scoreboard himself. For this endeavor, Denver has the right weapons in its arsenal.

The line has clearly improved compared to the previous year. Even though Bolles in particular had huge problems with his opponent in the last game, Case Keenum against KC should get enough time in the pocket. With Thomas, Sanders and Rookie Sutton, he also has enough starting positions to pose problems for his opponents. However, he has not yet succeeded in doing so continuously this year. 6.32 NY/A with three touchdowns and five picks are not the values you’d expect from the new QB in Colorado.

Drops of the attackers make Keenum’s life more difficult, but he himself still makes too many mistakes (especially at the beginning of the games). And this although he gets enough support from the running game. Almost 5 yards per carry generates Denver’s RB Corps around the two strong rookies Lindsay and Freeman. A good running game and at least a solid Keenum should be enough for Denver to score enough points.

Denver’s opponent has even more to fight with his own defense. As well as the Chiefs’ offense works, the defence of Kansas City presents itself as perforated. Both the Total Stats (over 400 Total Yards allowed per game) and the Advanced Stats (32nd place according to Defense DVOA) show that the team would not be able to win games without the heroic performances of Mahomes.

If Denver can continuously exploit this weakness and control the clock, the second defeat of the season can be avoided with the support of the home crowd. 37-34 Denver.

Adrian Franke (SPOX): Denvers Defense is good, no question, especially the Run-Defense already looks very good and benefits enormously from Chubb. The secondary, however, is, I’ll go along with it, quite vulnerable. You have already mentioned some of the names, but even Bradley Roby is not yet on the hoped-for level and is now being attacked by teams. And the Chiefs have without any question the means to start right here.

No other NFL team has such a diverse arsenal of weapons at this level as the Chiefs, and when the Broncos put Chris Harris on Tyreek Hill, for example, Sammy Watkins becomes a serious problem.

Only Houston’s Deshaun Watson throws the ball further on average than Patrick Mahomes (11.6 Average Intended Air Yards), who has several “wow” plays with him week after week, who also inspires with pre- and post-snap reads and distributes the passes well. Only Running Back Kareem Hunt plays a much smaller role in the passing game, which is characterized by few checkdowns, than he did last year.

The team’s internal stat leader here? Travis Kelce! The tight end is at 21 targets (16 REC, 229 YDS, 2 TD, 9 First-Down-Catches) and is for this game another huge matchup problem for Denver, I can only agree with you. Baltimore managed to get Tight End Mark Andrews into good matchups against Denvers Linebacker several times last week, as did Oakland the week before with Jared Cook and of course Seattle with Will Dissly at the season opener. These duels will be looking for Andy Reid and the Chiefs.

And yes – all hymns of praise to the Chiefs over the first three weeks always come with a “but”, and this “but” is the pass defense. Kansas City is one of the most vulnerable (if not the most vulnerable) secondarys in the season to date and no more than an average pass rush. As a result, against the Chargers and Steelers, it took the offensive fireworks to get back, and San Francisco also worked to close the game again until Jimmy Garoppolo was injured.

But at the same time these were also three very good offenses, with high individual and partly also scheme quality, which raises the question: How much can Denver take advantage of Kansas City’s greatest weakness? Keenum plays aggressively and wants to throw the ball deep, but the offensive line provides him with above-average protection.

At the same time you can see Keenum’s willingness to take risks and the omnipresent danger of a turnover: So far he has thrown 18 passes at least 20 yards downfield, only seven of them arrived – no touchdown, but two interceptions. The fast Underneath Passing game over the middle is also a bit sickly, although the weapons are available with Sanders. Keenum will surely catch the Chiefs-Secondary one or the other time – but it is also conceivable that he throws one or the other unnecessary turnover.

Denvers Pass-Defense is currently not good enough to significantly limit Kansas City’s offense and so the Broncos offense will have to keep up at least halfway. The Chiefs have one of the top right tackles in Mitchell Schwartz, who has only allowed three Pressures in the entire season, so it shouldn’t be a game in which Von Miller decides the game on his own. The chief’s open is too strong and versatile right now.