KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Merry Nixmas.
It is OK to peek your head above the covers and uncurl from the fetal position under the coffee table, Broncos Country.
All your team’s goals remain within reach even after the latest white-knuckle Thursday night performance. It will not receive any five-star reviews. But the coach does not care.
“It doesn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing,” said Sean Payton after his team’s 20-13 victory at unseasonable warm and foggy Arrowhead Stadium.
It does not belong in the Louvre. But they did not lose. It was a heart-slowing work that tested patience and aggravated ulcers. It was dull, charmless. But not pointless.
Broncos outlast Chiefs on Christmas night, 20-13, move to doorstep of AFC title
There’s something about this team that tests common sense: its lack of explosiveness and the ability to pull away from any opponent. Denver has won 11 one-score games. This shows resilience so finely tuned that it is impossible not to appreciate even if it is difficult to understand.
At this point, fans don’t watch the games. They endure them. Has there every been a stranger 13-3 team?
“You always have to remember this. You are playing the heart of a champion. I don’t care who comes out of that locker room,” Payton explained. “This is a team that has basically been at the top of our league for the better part of (a decade).”
The Broncos won because their young quarterback Bo Nix refused to let them lose. They won because the defense kept him in position to rally by suffocating a Kansas City offense that looked like a baby’s IKEA crib assembled by a first-time dad on Christmas Eve: disjoined and missing several pieces
They won despite being too methodical and acting too timid for too long, delivering a victory that raised interesting questions.
Was the offensive inconsistency the result of the two-high, safety look that forced endless marches, 7-iron shots and no drivers off the tee box? Payton said they were taking what the Chiefs were allowing, so they took the local train to the red zone instead of the express.
Broncos-Chiefs report card: Sean Payton controls time-of-possession in ugly Christmas win
The problem is when you don’t score touchdowns in the red zone — they were 2-for-4 — it leaves you sweating out a must-win despite allowing 95 yards of offense entering the two-minute warning.
In the end, Denver delivered a victory that was more notable than memorable. It snapped a nine-game losing streak at Arrowhead Stadium.
It improved the Broncos’ record in Kansas City in December to 4-20 as Nix joined Peyton Manning (2013), Kyle Orton (2009) and John Elway (1994) as the only quarterbacks to win here in this month.
“Those are somebody else’s demons. We can’t worry about that,” said Payton. “I have a lot of good memories here (with the Saints).”
Under normal circumstances, this game would be celebrated.
Instead, it raised concerns about the Broncos’ legitimacy as an AFC West champion, as the conference’s top seed. If the Chargers lose to the Texans on Saturday, Denver gets cool shirts and caps for their first division title since 2015 while sitting on the couch. If the Chargers win, the Broncos must beat them next Sunday to claim the West and pole position in the playoffs.
Everything remains in place. So why do our stomaches feel like we drank egg nog spiked with hot sauce?
Maybe because the defense failed to produce a turnover and did not make the quarterback from Whoville miserable as expected. But nothing went as planned. Nix admitted as much.
“It was exactly the opposite we thought we were going to get (from them defensively). I thought they were going to blitz the heck out of us. But we had to inch our way down the field,” said Nix, who finished 26 of 38 for 182 yards. “They were taking things away. This was one of those games you knew weren’t going to throw for a lot of yards.”
This wasn’t supposed to happen. No team takes a dive like the Chiefs. Last year, the Broncos beat their JV in the season finale 38-0. But maybe because it was likely Travis Kelce’s last home game or because the Chiefs are, well, the Chiefs, Andy Reid nearly became the Grump that stole Christmas.
Last Sunday, quarterback Chris Oladokun was the punch line to a joke. But he had a chance to beat the Broncos with a pass to the end zone with 20 seconds remaining.
In the end, Nix outplayed him with his legs. He scrambled for a score on a quarterback draw. He extended drives with quarterback sneaks. And on the biggest play of the game, he didn’t speak.
On fourth-and-2 from the 9-yard line with two minutes remaining, the Broncos lined up in the wildcat. R.J. Harvey was prepared to take the snap. Or not. The Broncos were never running a play. It was on right guard Quinn Meinerz to bark out a cadence as Harvey’s heal hit.
It worked, drawing Chris Jones offsides. Reid has been trolling the Broncos for nine years. He rubbed it in their face in 2016 with a defensive tackle in the wildcat throwing a touchdown pass.
The Broncos used a left guard to end up on the right side of history.
“Thanksgiving is easy in this profession,” Payton said. “Christmas can be difficult. It was a hard-fought win. And that’s all that matters.”
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