173 yards on night one, and Kansas City already looks sorted at running back
Kansas City looked right at home. The Chiefs hammered Denver 31-10 on Monday night in their opener, and Kenneth Walker III stole the show: 173 rushing yards, a career best, and two touchdowns overall.
Walker signed with the Chiefs in free agency after being named Super Bowl MVP with Seattle in February. The move is paying off already. He converted three third-and-1s in the first half. Then he ripped off a 60-yard touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter, beating cornerback Riley Moss on fourth-and-1.
At that point, Walker had piled up more yards on his own (165) than Denver’s entire offense (113).
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Mahomes shakes off nine months of rust, Kelce climbs the all-time list
Patrick Mahomes was playing his first game since hurting his knee in December. The quarterback took a while to settle in. He finished 15 of 27 for 184 yards, with one touchdown pass to Walker, another to Rashee Rice and one interception. He also scrambled 15 yards for a score in the first half.
Travis Kelce made history too. His 59-yard catch moved him into second place all time among tight ends for receiving yards. He passed Jason Witten and his 13,046 yards. Kelce now sits on 13,079. Tony Gonzalez still leads the way with 15,127.
Nine first downs. One of them came from a penalty.
Bo Nix had a nightmare of an evening. Picked off on the third play of the game by rookie Mansoor Delane, the 2026 sixth overall pick, he then coughed up two fumbles. The Chiefs defense added four sacks. The heat, the wind and the humidity did the rest.
The numbers tell the story. Kansas City ran for 220 yards; Denver managed just 176 in total. The Broncos were held to nine first downs, one of them coming via penalty, and went 2-for-12 on third down. Nix finished 17 of 28 for 131 yards and a touchdown to Evan Engram in the first quarter.
It was Denver’s first game with Davis Webb calling the offense instead of head coach Sean Payton. On this evidence, the switch did nothing to help.
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