Playing out their first season without a playoff berth since 2014 and with quarterback Chris Oladokun making his first NFL start, the Kansas City Chiefs stayed in the game until the end with the No. 1 team in the current AFC playoff standings on Thursday night.
But then, so do nearly all the Denver Broncos’ opponents. And like most of those opponents, the Chiefs lost.
Denver defeated Kansas City 20-13 to conclude the NFL’s Christmas tripleheader for the Broncos’ 11th victory by eight or fewer points this season. Two of Denver’s losses fit that category, too.
At 13-3, the Broncos became the first NFL to reach 13 victories in 2025.
The Broncos won with two second-half touchdown possessions that used up more than half the time in the second half. Each lasted 14 plays and featured a fourth-down conversion.
“We got a bunch of two-high zone the whole game, and they put a lid on top of it, and they make it tough to find explosive plays,” Denver quarterback Bo Nix said. “So you just got to inch your way down the field. And I think, obviously, the plays we scored on, they were longer drives, a lot of plays, so we just did what we had to do, but that was a good defense. …
“This was one of those games you knew you weren’t going to, as you were playing it, you knew you weren’t going to throw for a lot of yards. You just see how many completions you can hit in a row and get the ball to playmakers in space and get first down after first down. And you knew they were going to put a lid on it. But patience is the key in a game like that. And really in this league, it’s all about patience and just one cut after another.”
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After Kansas City tied the score at 13-13 with 8:03 remaining, Denver took 6:18 to retake the lead on a 1-yard touchdown pass from Nix to running back RJ Harvey.
The Broncos offense lined up on fourth-and-2 at the Kansas City 9-yard line during the series and got the Chiefs to jump offside, which allowed Denver to take a seven-point lead with 1:45 remaining instead of a three-point advantage.
“It’s a no-brainer freeze, but it was at a different formation, one we’d never shown,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said about the fourth down. “We were going to take the delay of game, so we didn’t have a play. I don’t know why we called it Harrisburg. Because it looked like a play we have called Pittsburgh and no one moves in Harrisburg, I think that’s why. We just came up with that. And so it’s a unique one.”
The seven-point lead made a difference when Kansas City reached the Broncos 21-yard line on its final possession and had an incompletion into the end zone on fourth down instead of being able to tie the score with a field goal with 14 seconds left.
Nix completed 5-of-7 passes for 24 yards on the 65-yard series, including a 17-yard throw to wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey on third-and-10 at the Chiefs 45-yard line.
Nix completed all six of his passes for 60 yards when Denver moved 72 yards for a touchdown after falling behind 10-6. Nix’s passes included a 23-yard connection with wide receiver Courtland Sutton that advanced the Broncos to the Kansas City 30-yard line.
On fourth-and-1 at the Chiefs 10, Nix picked up the yardage with a quarterback sneak, then ran 9 yards to the end on the next snap as Denver took a 13-10 lead with 1:55 left in the third quarter.
A former Pinson Valley High School and Auburn standout, Nix completed 26-of-38 passes for 182 yards with one touchdown and one interception and ran nine times for 42 yards and one touchdown as the Broncos ended a nine-game losing streak at Arrowhead Stadium.
“I thought he came up with some really big plays,” Payton said. “In that soft zone, even though it’s zone, there was some 8-yard scampers that were really important. …
“They were going to force us to rope-a-dope a little bit, if you will, and we made enough plays.”
A former Samford QB, Oladokun completed 13-of-22 passes for 66 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions and ran for 11 yards on two carries. In his fourth season on the Kansas City practice squad, Oladokun played his second game as a member of the Chiefs’ 53-man active roster and made his first NFL start after starter Patrick Mahomes sustained a season-ending knee injury on Dec. 14 and Gardner Minshew did the same on Sunday.
Oladokun threw his first NFL touchdown pass to running back Brashard Smith as the Chiefs took a 7-3 lead with 12:49 left in the first half.
“It’s great to get that win,” Payton said, “and you always have to remember this: Man, you’re playing the heart of a champion, and, you know, (coach) Andy (Reid) and this team, I don’t care who comes out of that locker room, this is a team that basically has been at the top of our league for the better part of this century and so there’s a ton of respect we have for what they’ve been able to accomplish.”
The victory moved Denver one-half game ahead of the New England Patriots at the top of the AFC standings and put the No. 1 seed in the conference playoffs in the Broncos’ reach. With a victory over the Los Angeles Chargers in the regular-season finale on Jan. 4, Denver will earn the top seed, the accompanying first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs regardless of the outcomes of any other games.
“Some other team could help us along the way,” Nix said, “but at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to us versus them, and we’re excited to have them at home. It’s going to be, a really good environment. It’s going to be a great atmosphere, and, honestly, it’s playoff time. It’s a playoff atmosphere. So I know it’s going to be tough. I haven’t beaten them, and so it’s going to be a good nine days of preparation and then on the 10th day, it’s all you got for four quarters or however long it takes. And so we’re excited about it, it’ll be good to have rest also. So it’ll be a good long weekend for us.”
