KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On a night when the beleaguered Denver Broncos defense played well enough to win against the high-powered Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday night in Arrowhead Stadium, quarterback Russell Wilson was to sort through one of the worst games of his career, a 19-8 loss that dropped the Broncos to 1-5.
“We had a chance, we’ve got to play better, cleaner,” a somewhat sullen Wilson said. “I’ve got to play better. That starts with me.”
Wilson, who had two 300-yard passing games in the first three games of the season and looked to be finding a comfort level in coach Sean Payton’s offense, struggled some this past Sunday in a four-sack, 196-yard day in the Broncos’ loss to the New York Jets.
And Thursday became a tumble back to the struggles of 2022, when Wilson finished with a career-low 16 touchdown passes and a career-high 55 sacks.
Against the Chiefs, Wilson finished 13-of-22 passing for 95 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. It was the first game of Wilson’s career, now in its 12th season, in which he finished with fewer than 150 yards passing and had two interceptions.
Wilson also had four passes batted down at the line of scrimmage and was sacked four times Thursday.
In all, the Broncos had eight possessions against the Chiefs that went for 34 or fewer yards and the Broncos didn’t put a scoring drive together until the fourth quarter. Courtland Sutton made a one-handed snare for a touchdown with six minutes, seven seconds left in the game.
All on a night when the Broncos’ defense had limited the Chiefs to one touchdown.
“Offensively we struggled throwing the ball, our third-down numbers were poor,” Payton said. “We had a game where we certainly played well enough defensively, but offensively … from a third-down perspective keeping drives going we struggled until late in the game … To win in our league, you’ve got to be better throwing the ball. I don’t think the wind was that big of a factor.”
“They did a lot of different things,” Wilson said of the Chiefs’ defense. “The first [interception] was on me, they made a great play on the ball that bounced up on [the second interception] … that’s part of the game … They made good plays tonight, they’re a good defense.”
The Broncos are now 4-16 in Wilson’s 20 starts with the team. The Broncos traded five draft picks, including two first-round and two second-round picks, along with three players to the Seattle Seahawks in 2022 to acquire Wilson.