KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Courtland Sutton and the Broncos were still celebrating his 32-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter Sunday when the tremor preceding the earthquake rippled.
It barely registered, but maybe it had been building for some time. Weeks, even.
On Wil Lutz’s extra point, Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal bull-rushed off the left side of the Broncos’ protection and knocked Alex Forsyth down to his back.
No problem, though. Lutz’s kick sailed through the uprights to give Denver a 14-3 lead.
Chenal, though, knew he was on to something.
After the game, he said, “I don’t want to point out anything specific, but each week as the game goes along, it’s more of a feel thing. Are they blocking high or are they giving help to our best get-off guy, (safety) Justin Reid? A lot of times they’ll go out there and leave openings up the middle.”
Chenal was more direct with Pro Football Talk, reportedly telling the outlet Forsyth was “light on his toes” and that he thought a bull rush would work.
The Chiefs had an idea beforehand, though, that the left side of Denver’s line might be susceptible.
“We did,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid said, “but it’s also something that we work on like crazy, so it normally doesn’t work quite like that. But that one, we had a couple of different guys. (defensive lineman George Karlaftis) was in there, too, I believe. I haven’t had a chance to look at the replay, but it looked like we had a couple different guys in there.”
They did, and it’s not the first time for the Broncos’ left side.
In a review of the Broncos’ 40 combined field goal attempts (21) and extra points (19) so far in 2024, The Post found 22 instances of players getting knocked over backward.
The distribution of those among the Broncos’ front probably served as a blinking red light.
Of those 22, Forsyth had been the guy knocked over 15 times. Add in two for Matt Peart, and 77.3% of the knock-downs came from the Broncos’ left side. Alex Palczewski had three and Calvin Throckmorton one on the right side and long-snapper Mitchell Fraboni went backward once.
“When something like that happens — it could be a trick play or whatever — it’s pretty common for the team that had success with it to say, ‘Hey, we saw (something).’ And credit them for that,” Payton said Monday. “And credit them for that. They exploited something we thought was fixed and stronger and yet not enough. I read all the comments afterward. It’s tough to lose a game that way.
“This isn’t on the player. This is on all of us. This is on us as coaches. We’ve got to continue to look at, are we big enough stature-wise for that? And understanding how the rush was coming. It’s disappointing.”
Getting knocked over by a rusher isn’t necessarily the end of the world on the field goal unit. Rush enough guys or overload a side and you might get somebody to the ground. The unit doesn’t have to hold up for very long.
That doesn’t mean that all of those kicks were close to being blocked, but bull-rushing Forsyth had become a frequent practice by opposing teams. He was knocked down on two extra points against New Orleans, all four extra points against Carolina, the lone extra point against Baltimore, the second extra point against Kansas City and both field goal attempts. That’s 10 of Denver’s past 17 kicks.
Another trend in the pressures the Broncos gave up: The 15 from Forsyth and four combined from Palczewski and Throckmorton came from the same spot on either side of the line — third out from the center.
From Fraboni out to the left, the Broncos align Quinn Meinerz, Mike McGlinchey and then Forsyth. To the right from Fraboni: Ben Powers, Garett Bolles and then Throckmorton (or Palczewksi when Throckmorton was not active). Tackle Peart and tight end Lucas Krull are on the flanks and will sometimes trade sides depending on where the Broncos think the rush will come from.
Forsyth is easy to blame, and he’s been knocked over a lot, but the Broncos coaching staff could have made a change if they felt it necessary. In each game there’s at least one offensive lineman active who’s not in on the field goal unit. That was Payton’s point Monday.
“When we see a corner that feels like he’s jumping on an out-and-up, we feel like he’s back on his heels,” Payton said. “They felt like they had an indication relative to how his weight was balanced. All of that is game planning, scouting and then it’s us coaching and self-scouting, but again, it’s nothing new.”
This time, it just cost a much higher price than the first nine games.
One small thing I liked: Rookie wide receiver Devaughn Vele has become a third-down weapon for rookie quarterback Bo Nix and the Denver offense in recent weeks.
Since Vele, a seventh-round pick out of Utah, returned to the active roster in Week 6, Nix has targeted him eight times on third and fourth downs. Vele’s got catches and conversions on all eight for 107 yards and a touchdown.
He converted three more Sunday against the Chiefs, including his first career touchdown.
Vele’s stat line Sunday (four catches for 39 yards) and for the season (22 catches on 27 targets for 215 yards) won’t draw a lot of attention, but context shows his growing importance to Denver’s offense.
One small thing I didn’t like: Courtland Sutton’s been really good the past three weeks, but his sequence at the end of the first half Sunday hurt.
Nix had just completed a 13-yarder to Vele on third-and-1 to get Denver to the KC 37-yard line and the outskirts of field goal range and went to the line to spike the ball with 15 seconds left in the half.
Sutton, though, lined up in the neutral zone. The penalty pushed the Broncos back to the 42-yard line.
On the next snap, Nix started to his right and came back to his left for Sutton on an in-cut. The ball was out ahead of Sutton, but he had a chance to catch it around the 25-yard line and got his hands on the ball. It’s one the veteran and top receiving threat for Denver has to find a way to haul in.
Denver had to settle for a low-probability 60-yard attempt from Lutz to end the half, which came up well short. A chance to extend the lead from 14-10, missed by that much.
Sutton, though, has picked up the pace considerably in the past three weeks. In that span, he’s got 21 catches (30 targets) for 292 yards and a touchdown. In the Broncos’ first seven games, Sutton had 21 catches (47 targets) for 277 and two TDs.
One trend to watch: Nik Bonitto is on a heater.
The Broncos’ third-year outside linebacker wreaked havoc Sunday against Kansas City. He logged a season-high six pressures on Mahomes, according to Next Gen Stats. The Chiefs simply had no answer for him off Mahomes’ left side, especially after an injury forced rookie Kingsley Suamataia into the game.
Bonitto finished with one sack but it easily could have been more. He had one wiped off the board by a defensive penalty in the second quarter. He also had Mahomes in his grasp twice only to have the QB escape for an incompletion and a Houdini-esque 35-yard completion to running back Samaje Perine.
Bonitto’s been playing at a high level for a while now, too.
Sunday was the fourth straight game he logged a pressure rate of 20% or better. In Denver’s first six games, his best mark was 17.4% against Tampa Bay in Week 3. For context on the current run, of 29 players with 30 or more pressures so far this season, only three have a season-long pressure rate at 20% or better — Houston’s Danielle Hunter (21.8%) Cleveland’s Myles Garrett (21.5%) and Rams rookie Jared Verse (20%).
Bonitto’s at 15.8% for the season, but in the past month he’s looked like one of the most disruptive rushers in the NFL.
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