Everyone came to watch the knee
Nine months to the day since Patrick Mahomes wrecked his left knee against the Chargers, Arrowhead had one question. It got answered on the opening drive. Then Kenneth Walker III spent three quarters making the question look small.
Walker carried 23 times for 173 yards and scored twice in his Chiefs debut overnight, and Kansas City beat Denver 31-10 to close out Week 1. No Kansas City back had run for that many yards since Jamaal Charles put 226 on the Colts in 2012, the season before Andy Reid took the job. Walker added three catches for 18 yards out of the backfield.
“He did a really nice job,” Reid said. “You never know going in how many times you’re going to give him the ball. That’s not a calculated thing. You have to be making yards. For him to play the way he did I thought was spectacular.”
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Mahomes settled it early
With a brace on the left knee, Mahomes threw for 184 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a third, the first of them a 15-yard scramble that finished Kansas City’s opening possession. Denver tied the game on Bo Nix’s 19-yard throw to Evan Engram, and the Chiefs answered with a 10-play, 80-yard drive that ended when Rashee Rice, back from a knee injury of his own, caromed off two defenders into the end zone for 14-7 at the break.
Walker took over after that. On fourth-and-inches to start the third quarter he felt the Denver front collapse inside, bounced outside and ran 60 yards untouched. “I knew they were going to crash in. When they crashed in, I bounced out,” he said.
The clinching score came out of a museum. Reid’s staff pulled a formation from black-and-white footage of the 1930s: Mahomes in a three-point stance beside backup Justin Fields, snap, shovel pass, Walker into the end zone. Kansas City snapped a three-game losing run against the team that ended its nine-year hold on the AFC West.
Denver produced 176 yards
Sean Payton’s first game with Davis Webb calling the plays went about as badly as an opener can go. Nix threw for 131 yards with an interception and lost a fumble, and the Broncos finished with 176 yards of offense. Jaylen Waddle, acquired from Miami this offseason for a package of draft picks, caught one pass for two yards. Engram led the team with four catches for 43.
“As a whole offense, a whole team, we just didn’t play really good,” Nix said. Payton went shorter: “Obviously not a good evening.” Kansas City has its own bill to pay. Rookie cornerback Mansoor Delane, the sixth pick in the draft, landed on his shoulder after an interception on the third snap of the night and did not return, and linebacker Cooper McDonald left in the first half with a knee problem. Denver hosts Jacksonville on Sunday. The Chiefs get Indianapolis on Sunday night.
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