Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are going to take on the Denver Broncos tonight in what can be called the latter team’s biggest game in a decade. If they win, the Broncos will cement themselves as Super Bowl contenders with an elite defense and a winning head coach. But if they lose, they will slip back into the pretenders category, as they’ve had some suspect wins lately.
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Despite the Broncos’ defense being on a historic run with the total team sack record in sight, injuries have ravaged them on both sides of the ball. JK Dobbins was just placed on IR. Patrick Surtain has missed the past two games with a pectoral injury. And linebacker Alex Singleton will miss today’s game due to an illness.
Meanwhile, Mahomes and the Chiefs have been the most inconsistent they’ve ever been. At 5-4, with no loss by more than one score, it’s been hard to get a grasp on them. That’s why it’s tough to pick a side in this one.
However, former Broncos legend Aqib Talib has no doubts. He thinks that Denver will take down Mahomes this weekend, and he even provided a scoreline.
“It’s going to be 20-14, Broncos,” Talib told The Arena. The former DB then made a bold claim about Mahomes.
“Our defense, we go against Patty already. He has his worst games against Denver. He only averages like 20 points against Denver. His worst outings are against the Broncos,” Talib said.
One of the other podcast hosts then informed Talib that Mahomes is 13-1 in his career against the Broncos. But Talib firmly held his ground, claiming that he struggles statistically when playing Denver. So, let’s take a closer look.
Unfortunately for Talib, he’s factually wrong. Mahomes has solid stats in his career against the Broncos. He’s thrown 20 TDs to 11 INTs, while passing for 3,771 yards and sporting a 92.3 passer rating.
Maybe Talib was thinking about recent seasons, though, where Mahomes has had some struggles against the Broncos. In 2023, he had a game with no TDs and two INTs in his only career loss against them. He also struggled to get by them again in a 16-14 win in their most recent meeting.
But at the end of the day, Mahomes still owns the Broncos. And that’s why we’re going to pick the Chiefs to win this contest, 24-20. It should be a hard-fought battle with a lot of strong defense. It’ll probably feel like a playoff atmosphere too, which we know Mahomes thrives in.
