Football season off to a successful start

Great News!!!! The Denver Broncos won their first game of the season over their division rival, the Kansas City Chiefs. The final score was 34-24, but it was actually not that close. If not for Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer having a brain cramp at the start of the 2nd half and throwing two interceptions deep in his own territory leading directly to 10 KC points and Running Back Quentin Griffin fumbling as he was going into the KC end zone, the final score could have been 41-14. The defense had a couple of bad drives that led to long Chiefs touchdowns, but generally were good. They did give up 150 yards rushing to Priest Holmes, but he’s a stud back who is going to get his yards and the Chiefs have a great O-line. The pass defense was generally very strong, although that might have something to do with Kansas City’s lack of a receiving threat.

Offensively, we were strong (except for the points noted above). However, I am wary of reading too much into that because the Chiefs defense could give up 400 yards and 34 points to a Pee Wee team. The big news was that Denver’s Special Teams (always a weak spot under Mike Shanahan) played great. They returned kicks very well, covered decently on punts and put all but one kickoff through the end zone so that they could not be returned. Jason Elam was his normal reliable self. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that Shanahan actually cares about his special teams playing well this year. But it’s only one game, so I don’t want to get too excited yet. More next week.