ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- On a night when there were more than enough lost opportunities to go around for the Denver Broncos, one thing kept gnawing at the team's defense more than the rest.
"Second-and-30, no question," said Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall, who watched the Kansas City Chiefs convert from that down-and-distance on their game-winning drive. "That's the one. Second-and-30? That should never happen -- ever, man. I mean, c'mon."
However this season unfolds over the next 12 games, what went down in a 27-23 loss to the Chiefs on a cool October evening has already left a mark. How big an impact will it have? That remains to be seen in how, or if, the Broncos bounce back.
The Broncos' defense has already seen Raiders quarterback Derek Carr finish a game with just three incomplete passes. It has seen the Ravens' Joe Flacco pick away at defensive backs who, as coach Vance Joseph put it, "were too soft in coverage."
On Monday night, the Broncos spent roughly 47 football minutes playing exactly the way they wanted to play, only to see it unravel in the game's final 12 minutes, 47 seconds. Certainly, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes gave the Broncos a glimpse of what could be a very long decade to come, and he deserves a fair share of the credit in the Kansas City win.
Mahomes had just 65 yards passing at halftime, but he finished the game with 304 yards and two touchdowns -- one passing, one rushing. Mahomes consistently eluded the Broncos' attempts to sack him and even converted one play throwing left-handed.
"The kid can play," Marshall said. "He showed that ... but what happened still should never happen."
Several of the Broncos defenders, including linebacker Von Miller and cornerback Chris Harris Jr., expressed frustrations about the inability to match the team's coverages to the pass rush, something that has been consistently right when the defense has been at its best.
As Miller has put it, "When the pass rush is there, we don't have the coverage, and when the coverage is there, we don't get the pass rush."
But on second-and-30 with the Broncos clinging to a 23-20 lead and just 2:59 to play, the Broncos played it safe with their pass rush, and Mahomes found wide receiver Demarcus Robinson for a 23-yard gain. On third-and-7, Mahomes hit tight end Demetrius Harris for a 35-yard gain to give the Chiefs a first-and-10 on the Broncos' 11-yard line.
While the Broncos disputed that the play clock had run out before Mahomes had the snap on the throw to Harris, they did not dispute that the conversion as a whole was another nugget of frustration in a season with a growing pile of them.
"Just didn't get it done. We have to have that game, we have to have that game," Marshall said. "We've got to have that one, man. Second-and-30? There's no way they should have gotten a first down. They got 23 yards on that -- crazy."
Harris said simply, "I don't want to talk about that," and several Broncos defenders privately said they had hoped to blitz on the second-down play. But overall, the sacks haven't come since their six-sack outing in the season opener, and they admit they haven't been as aggressive in coverage as they want to be.
The Broncos closed out their fourth game decidedly in the middle of the road on defense -- 17th in both total defense and scoring defense -- and 2-2 in the standings. Now they go on the road to face the New York Jets on a short week -- and, oh, they're 1-8 in their past nine road games -- before a Week 6 matchup with the currently undefeated and touchdown-happy Los Angeles Rams.
"We should have executed," Broncos safety Justin Simmons said. "We played three-and-a-half quarters great defensively, and at the end of the game, we just didn't execute ... we have to close things out."