Denver Broncos: RIP on 2018 Season With 30-23 Loss to Kansas City

The Denver Broncos slumped to a 30-23 loss against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday morning, marking the death of hope for a successful season.

The question now is whether Denver holds a fire sale before the Tuesday trade deadline or continues to try to salvage a broken season.

We’ve talked often here and in the Twitterverse about how this is a systemic problem for the Broncos that begins with a vacuum at the Ownership level.  Putting the woes of the Broncos only on the shoulders of Vance Joseph is lazy and it does nothing to address the real problems this team has.

The game itself wasn’t as miserable as losses to the Jets or Baltimore but it was still a mistake-filled loss.

The Broncos jumped out to a 7-0 lead after the teams swapped three-and-out possessions.  After a Harrison Butker make and Brandon McManus‘ miss, the Chiefs rattled off four-staight touchdown drives to keep the Broncos playing catch up all day.

The Denver team couldn’t and can’t, they had opportunities which they blew with penalties, turnovers and just plain inept defense.

It’s another in a familiar refrain over the last three seasons in Denver.  Bad offensive playcalling, poor play from the highest-paid players.

The Broncos defense had been exposed in recent weeks, falling from a serviceable pass defense with poor run support to a team that’s deficient at both.  Before the Arizona Cardinals, the pass rush had been absent, Bradley Roby wasn’t gaining any fans and tight-ends were wreaking havoc on the Broncos linebacking and defensive secondary corps.

On Sunday they managed to hold KC star Kareem Hunt to 50 yards on 16 carries, an improvement but one that’s hard to credit Denver for, considering the Chiefs threw the ball 34 times in the game.

We covered what we thought were the things Denver needed to achieve victory on Sunday in Kansas City here. How did the Broncos fare against those expectations?