Good morning, I’m Tyler Lauletta, stepping in once again for your usual host, Dan Gartland, who accidentally opened up a wormhole while developing a strategy to stop the tush push. If you have fun here, you should check out our other morning newsletter, SI:CYMI, where you’ll get a daily data dump of quick-hitting news and a watch schedule for the biggest action in sports every night.
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🐴Broncos break through
🦅Eagles dynasty case
🏈Coaching crossroads
Week 11 gave us several marquee matchups that helped set the tone for the second half of the season. The Rams outlasted the Seahawks in a battle for NFC West supremacy, and the Eagles won a rock fight against the Lions on Sunday Night Football to keep their spot atop the NFC.
But the biggest result of Sunday’s action came out of Denver, where the Broncos dragged the Chiefs into the mud and ultimately left with a 22–19 win over their AFC West rival. It was the Broncos’ eighth straight win, and at 9–2, they are currently tied with the Patriots for the best record in the NFL. More importantly, they might have finally taken the throne that Patrick Mahomes & Co. have held since the star quarterback entered the league.
To fully understand this year’s win requires remembering what happened last year when these two teams met at Arrowhead. The Chiefs entered that game 8–0, but had been far from dominant despite their undefeated record. (Just two of their eight victories came by more than a score.) Meanwhile, the Broncos were settling in with rookie quarterback Bo Nix, who had led the team to a surprising 5–4 start.
The Broncos had trailed 16–14 with just under six minutes left to play. Denver methodically drove down the field and into the red zone, setting up kicker Wil Lutz with a 35-yard field goal to win the game. But instead of breaking through with a win, the Broncos watched the Chiefs break through their line and block the kick for a walk-off victory.
A year later, the script had flipped. This time, it was the Broncos who entered the matchup as one of the hottest teams in the AFC, seemingly untouchable in close matchups, while the Chiefs were a middling 5–4 and looking to right the ship. Again, the game was closely contested and came down to a single field goal as time expired, but this time, Lutz split the uprights.
“I was kind of like, shoot, here we are," said Lutz of the moments leading up to the game-winning kick, his fifth made field goal of the day. “I've been waiting for a game like that.”
For the Chiefs, what began as an opportunity to defend the throne ended with yet another tight loss. After going a remarkable 11–0 in one-score games last year, Kansas City is now 0–5 in such contests in 2025. Some of that is regression to the mean, and some of that is failing to come through in the way they did last year. Regardless of the reason behind each defeat, the losses hurt.
“We’ve been losing these close games recently, but we’ve played some good football in spurts,” Mahomes said. “It’s just about being more consistent, and until we go out there and do it, all you can do is just keep saying, keep practicing and getting better and better and push yourself to go out there and do it on game day.”
Entering Week 11, the Broncos had the best record in the AFC, and the Chiefs had just barely scraped their way above .500. Even with the division rivals in clearly different spots, it was hard to believe that Kansas City wouldn’t find a way to win the AFC West by the end of the regular season. That changed on Sunday. We have never known a world where Patrick Mahomes was an NFL quarterback and not a division champion. With the Chiefs now 3.5 games back of Denver, Mahomes is now starting to consider alternate paths to the postseason.
"It's going to be tough to get back in the division race," Mahomes conceded after the loss. "The goal is to get into the playoffs and try to make a run at it.”
No one doubts that the Chiefs could make a run at it, but even if they do, it feels like Sunday’s game marked a potential shift in the franchise’s fortunes. After a decade of dominance, Kansas City is back to scrapping for a playoff berth this year.
We won’t know if the shift is for real or if it’s one clunky year in the middle of a dynasty that is far from ending, but it sure feels like Nix and the Broncos have something special cooking in Denver and the Chiefs’ days of waltzing to the AFC title game are in the rearview.
Denver and Kansas City will face off again at Arrowhead on Christmas Day. Depending on how the next few weeks go, one side may already be comfortably in the playoffs at kickoff, while the other is still battling for one of the final wild-card spots. But this time, it might be Denver in the driver’s seat.
…things I saw this weekend:
5. Jaelan Phillips and his cats.
4. Some wild wind in Philadelphia.
3. Golfer Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen had an unreal final five holes to secure his PGA Tour card.
2. Darnell Washington is your favorite tight end’s favorite tight end.
1. Ireland found a goal in stoppage time to keep its World Cup hopes alive.