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Week 8 Kansas City Chiefs Customized Jerseys , here we are!Seriously though, can someone please slow down time so I can enjoy the first season with Patrick Mahomes as the Chiefs starting quarterback for a little longer? How sweet it’s been, folks.Last week we talked about the Bengals — specifically Andy Dalton and Marvin Lewis — having issues with playing in night games. Those issues reared their ugly heads again for the Bengals as they were trounced by the Chiefs 45-10 during primetime.Now it’s on to the Broncos for the second time already this young season, and here is the Broncos statistical overview:1. Some historical notesOf all the AFC West teams, the Broncos are by far my favorite. That is why I’d like nothing more than to spoil the Broncos history — which inspired me to write this section covering a couple things regarding the Broncos/Chiefs history.鈾?Let the good times roll 鈾玊he Chiefs have done well against the Broncos in their last six games. In fact, the Broncos haven’t beaten the Chiefs since the Broncos won the Super Bowl in the 2015 season.If you’re a Chiefs fan like myself, you’re probably tired of hearing Broncos fans say something along the lines of, “Well, you haven’t won a Super Bowl in a billion years so my team is automatically better than yours, neener neener neener.”If the Chiefs want to stop this type of nonsense from Broncos fans, their best bet would be to win a Super Bowl. The best way for the Chiefs to get to the Super Bowl is by winning home-field advantage.The Chiefs can win home-field advantage if they keep winning games — particularly against a divisional and conference opponent.This brings me to my second item of historical interest:The reason I bring this up, is because I don’t want a Broncos quarterback to own the record.Obviously, I think it will be a long shot for Mahomes to pass the 55-touchdown mark set by Peyton Manning, but there is still hope. Currently, Mahomes is on pace to throw 50 touchdowns on the season.We’ll see if Mahomes can continue to sling the ball when it gets colder — you might as well add that to the “Mahomes checklist”.2. Third downThanks to Bill Connelly’s advanced stats, we can see the Broncos have had a bit of a mixed bag on third down this year:On offense, the Broncos have done well in third-and-short situations — of course, they may struggle more than usual with these on Sunday due to Royce Freeman’s injury.The Broncos offense has struggled on third down when they get into obvious passing situations. The Broncos third-and-long/medium success rate is hovering around the bottom third of the league.With the Chiefs success on third down defensively, the Broncos must net positive gains on first and second down if they want to continue to move the ball.Defensively Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts , the Broncos have struggled on third-and-long and third-and-short situations, but they are second in the NFL in third and medium situations.3. Protecting MahomesThis should be the biggest storyline heading into the Broncos game. The Chiefs have injuries along their offensive line and a third-string center, Austin Reiter, will be starting on Sunday.It’s no news to anyone that the Broncos have a decent pass rush and if the Broncos want to win on Sunday, they’ll likely do it by tormenting Mahomes with their pass rush.The Broncos are one of the best teams at rushing the passer, and the Chiefs are one of the best teams at avoiding sacks. Something has to give here, right?In their first meeting, the Broncos sacked Mahomes only one time on 45 passing attempts — a sack percentage of 2.2 percent, which is 6.2 points lower than their average on the year.We also have this little bit of information:Gathering all our information, we know Mahomes was only sacked once against the Broncos in their first meeting, and we also see that Mahomes has vastly outperformed Alex Smith from last year in regard to sack percentage.This tells me Mahomes has great pocket awareness, and if I had to put money down, I’d put it on the Chiefs holding the Broncos pass rush at bay mostly on Sunday. I’d be surprised if the Broncos have more than two sacks.4. Denver’s run gameOne common thread of thought we’ve heard regarding the Chiefs all year is that teams need to run the ball consistently against the Chiefs to run the clock and control the ball. The thought is keeping Mahomes off the field to limit the Chiefs from scoring a trillion points each game.In their first meeting, Denver ran the ball 22 times for 159 yards — a 7.2 yards per rush average.Royce Freeman will not play against the Chiefs this time around and he accounted for 67 of the 159 yards in the Chiefs/Broncos first meeting. However, I’m not sure how much his absence will impact the Broncos run game.Phillip Lindsay will garner the majority of the carries on Sunday, and he’ll be the primary running back for the Broncos, who have utilized a running back-by-committee system so far this season.Freeman is averaging 4.4 yards per rush in 2018, and Lindsay is averaging 5.8 yards per rush. So missing Freeman may not hurt the Broncos as much as it would hurt most teams who lost their starting running back.All that said, if the Broncos want to have a chance to win https://www.thechiefsfanshop.com/hats , they’re going to need to run the ball effectively like they did in the first game. The Chiefs need to improve on the 7.2 yards per rush attempt they allowed last time the Chiefs faced the Broncos.I want to see the Chiefs defense continue to improve, and how the Chiefs fare against Lindsay could give us a glimpse into whether or not the Chiefs defense is improving.5. Case of the KeenumsThis one will be quick and simple:In their first meeting, the Chiefs were able to intercept Keenum one time. With the game at Arrowhead, I’m looking for the Chiefs secondary to at least duplicate the one interception they had in Denver.Ultimately, the Chiefs defense needs to improve and one such way they can improve is by picking off Keenum.It’s pretty shocking to see Keenum’s regression back to his 2016 form:I’m hopeful the Chiefs secondary can pick off a pass or two from Keenum, and they’ll need it if they want the defense to continue to improve.So that ends Week 8’s version of chiefStats. What are your keys to the game? Fresh off a big victory against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Kansas City Chiefs stay home for another week and take on a familiar adversary: the Denver Broncos.Here are five things to watch during the game:1. Dueling blowoutsMark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY SportsBoth of these teams are coming off blowout victories in the previous week — and as it happens, the final score of both games was 45-10.That seemed like an odd coincidence to me, so naturally, I wondered what kind of history there is for this kind of situation.The RundownSubscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here.It turns out that since the 1970 merger, there have been only four games in which both teams won their previous game by 35 or more points — the most recent in 1986.In 1972, the Dolphins beat the Jets 28-24 in Week 10.(That Miami team, of course, is the one that went undefeated through the Super Bowl that season).In 1973, the Falcons defeated the 49ers 17-3 in Week 7.In Week 9 of 1977, the Raiders beat the Oilers 34-29, and in 1986’s Week 5, the Bears blanked the Vikings 23-0.So in a very limited sample size, half of the games saw the teams put up a fair number of points in a one-score game Kansas City Chiefs Hoodie , and in the rest of the games, one of them walloped the other. (I didn’t really expect to learn anything from this.It was just fun to look up.I love my job!).In this game, both defenses have just given up fewer points than any other game this season.And both offenses have just put up their biggest scores of the season.(It’s the Internet, so I know some wag is going to point out that the Chiefs offense only scored 38.OK, fine.The Broncos offense only scored 31.Feel better?).You could reasonably expect both units on both teams to come out swinging.And it’s a division game.The Chiefs are 6-5 against the Broncos since Andy Reid’s arrival.Reid lost five times in a row, and has now won six straight — but only three have been relatively easy victories.In each of the last two — both with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback — the Chiefs have had to come from behind to win.So don’t look for a blowout in this game.Look for it to be an incredibly physical battle that will be played to the final whistle.2. Don’t overlook the Broncos defenseMark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY SportsAs a division rival, it’s easy for Chiefs fans to discount the Broncos.But it would be a mistake to discount the Broncos defense.The unit is, after all, the only one to hold the Chiefs to less than 30 points this season — albeit on their home field.They no longer have some of the players that made them one of the NFL’s top defenses, but there are still some very talented players on the Broncos defensive roster.This week, Broncos safety Justin Simmons told Denver’s KDSP that Denver knows what it needs to do.“If we want to win this game, it’s going to come down to us defensively, and we didn’t get it done in the fourth quarter,” Simmons said of the first game against the Chiefs. “This time it’s the same recipe.It’s going to come down to us — not only holding them to less points but creating more turnovers, creating more opportunities for the offense to have more time of possession and more chances to move the ball down the field. If we’re going to win in KC that’s what it’s going to take.”Simmons told KDSP that he might be playing in the slot more against the Chiefs — something that Broncos head coach Vance Joseph seemed to be hinting in remarks about Simmons on Monday.“He’s a good football player, he’s very smart,” Joseph said. “He allows us to play some base versus three-wide because he can cover the slot for the most part.He’s guy that’s valuable to us — as a leader, as a guy that can cover slots and as a blitzer that plays the ball from the high zone.”3. Organic pressureIsaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY SportsLast week, I pointed out that the Chiefs were going to have to pressure Andy Dalton without blitzing him — because Dalton isn’t good under pressure Allen Bailey Color Rush Jersey , but is good at making defenses pay for blitzing.Apparently, Bob Sutton knew that, too. As Craig Stout pointed out in his analysis of the Chiefs defense against the Bengals, Sutton blitzed Dalton exactly once — but still got a pair of sacks, a quarterback hit and 11 pressures on 33 passing attempts. Dalton slinked away from Arrowhead with a passer rating of 63.6 on the day, and the Chiefs held a good offense to just 10 points.Case Keenum isn’t quite in the same league as Dalton, but pressure will disrupt him, and like any experienced NFL quarterback, he capable of making a blitz backfire. Sutton would be wise to adopt a similar approach this week.4. Embracing the chaosRon Chenoy-USA TODAY SportsSince their backup quarterback Chad Kelly was arrested for criminal trespass in the early hours of Tuesday morning after attending teammate Von Miller’s annual Halloween party — and was subsequently cut by the team — it would be pretty easy to conclude that the Broncos are self-destructing from lack of leadership.And it’s possible that’s exactly what’s happening.But from long experience observing these kinds of incidents on NFL teams, I think it would be a mistake to assume that’s what’s going on.It’s not at all unknown for something like this to galvanize a team.It’s easy to imagine that Von Miller — embarrassed because this happened in connection with his party — to be doubly motivated to have a big game.It’s possible that Keenum — suddenly without a quarterback controversy swirling around him — could react in a similar way.In short, it’s impossible to predict what effect this incident will have on the Broncos. But it will be more than interesting to see how it plays out.5. More Mahomes recordsMark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY SportsPatrick Mahomes has thrown 22 touchdown passes in the first seven games this season — a feat that only Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have accomplished.If he gets three more against the Broncos — can you believe we’re calmly discussing the possibility that a Chiefs quarterback could throw three touchdown passes in an upcoming game as if it’s something that happens all the time? — he’ll have 25 in eight games.Both Brady and Manning have done that, too — but it would exceed the number thrown in eight games by Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Kurt Warner, Aaron Rodgers and Dan Marino.That’s some pretty hefty company.It’s also worth noting that if Mahomes makes it to 25 touchdown passes on Sunday, he’ll be the youngest player to throw that many through eight games of a season.Manning has done it twice — at 28 and 37 — and Brady didn’t do it until he was 30.Those three touchdown passes would also keep him ahead of Kurt Warner’s record for touchdown passes through nine career games — and in all probability, also push him above Warner’s passer rating of 116.1 through those games.