Risner: Broncos 'Should Have Won Game' at Chiefs
His coach despises the mere concept of moral victories, but in Dalton Risner's own words, although not aimed at Vic Fangio, "Do I give a crap? No, I do not."
The Denver Broncos — in more of the second-year left guard's words — "should have won that football game" against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 13, a game Denver lost, 22-16, in reality, on Sunday Night Football.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Risner was asked to identify his offensive expectations for the 4-8 Broncos over the final four games of another playoff-less season. He centered his answer around the fact, in his mind, the Broncos should instead be 5-7 right now, having just conquered their hated rival for the first time in a half-decade — at Arrowhead, no less.
“We controlled the line on Sunday. The Chiefs can watch their film and look up front. Hats off to them. They won, they’re a good football team and there are no moral victories, but we controlled the line up front. We did a better job than their defensive line did, for sure," Risner said. "We can be better in a lot of areas. Like I mentioned earlier, when you establish yourself in the run game and you establish it and impose your will on the defensive line as an offensive front, it opens a lot of different things for your offense. Moving forward, if we continue to do that, we will find success. We played one of the best teams in football. Do I give a crap? No, I do not. I don’t care how good they are. The [Washington Football Team] just beat the undefeated Steelers. On any given Sunday, a football team can win. I couldn’t care less if they are one of the best teams in the league. We should have won that football game and we had opportunities to. We have to continue to fix it and we have to continue to fix the little things, whether it’s scoring when we have the ball with six minutes left. We had at third down and we were at the 40 or 50-yard line. We have to find a way to execute there and then it’s a different game. We have to clean up the little things. There are good things to take away from that football game, but frankly, no one cares about the good things that you take away from it. People want to see wins, and that’s what we have to do.”
Risner poses a fairly presentable case, at least in terms of Denver's ground attack, which outgained its Kansas City counterpart's in rushing yards, 179-134. The offensive line sprung running back Melvin Gordon to his best output of the year (131 yards on 15 carries) and his longest scamper (65 yards) since 2017.
The Broncos took a 10-9 lead into halftime and won the time of possession battle (30:31-29:29) — but they ultimately lost the war. The Chiefs counterpunched in the second half with Patrick Mahomes; their opponent never re-adjusted. Gordon's performance wasn't enough to overcome Drew Lock's two interceptions and paltry 151 passing yards on just 15 completions.
Denver had a chance to steal a last-second upset in the fourth quarter ... until Lock threw his second pick, voiding a hard-fought effort that counts in the imaginary win column, right next to the participation trophies.
Still, the OL deserves its praise. Aside from Gordon's breakout, Lock was not sacked for the second consecutive game when previously the streaky second-year signal-caller had taken at least one sack in each start since Week 1. The front-five truly was playing Bully Ball, and playing it well.
A foundation on which to build.
"You watch that film and we rushed for [179], but we could have rushed for 250," Risner said. "Multiple positions—offensive line and running back, where there were more yards left out there. You guys can see the trend. When we run the football—really, when any team runs the football—a lot of things open up for it for us. We need to continue establishing that identity, and we need to continue rushing for 150+ yards and establishing that. People will know, ‘Hey, these Broncos are going to grind it down the field. The o-line is going to work, running backs are going to hit their holes and wide receivers are going to block, too.’ We needed to establish that a little bit more on Sunday night, but that’s something we’ve been working on and getting better at.”
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