Head­ing into their Week 13 prime­time matchup in Kansas City as a huge under­dog, the Bron­cos’ main objec­tive should be to win, as it always is, but that’s an unre­al­is­tic ask.

To start with, the Bron­cos (4–7) should focus on not get­ting embar­rassed, and that begins with con­tain­ing The Chee­tah, Kansas City wide­out Tyreek Hill, who’s been on a ram­page of late. Hill toast­ed Tam­pa Bay for 269 yards on 13 catch­es with three touch­downs this past Sunday.

Beat­ing the Chiefs (10–1) to snap a 10-game los­ing streak? I wouldn’t bet on it, as Den­ver bar­be­cue joint G‑Que did with Joe’s Kansas City (the los­er buys lunch for 100 kids in each city). Instead, I put the odds on anoth­er Den­ver dec­i­ma­tion at the hands of their AFC West rivals, who are on track for a fifth con­sec­u­tive divi­sion title and anoth­er Super Bowl run.

The trends in this game, specif­i­cal­ly in regards to the game-break­ing Hill, are all point­ed in Kansas City’s favor. In addi­tion to the show Hill put on against the Bucs, he post­ed 100-yard receiv­ing games in each of the pre­vi­ous two weeks, too, and has at least one touch­down catch in nine of his 11 games this year.

Tight end Travis Kelce is find­ing his All-Pro groove, too, with 100 yards of receiv­ing or more in three of his past four games. Hill and Kelce rank sec­ond and third in the league, respec­tive­ly, in receiv­ing yards this sea­son at 1,021 and 978.

Mean­while, the Bron­cos’ sec­ondary is sev­enth in the NFL with 210.1 pass­ing yards allowed per game, but that rank­ing is mere­ly win­dow dress­ing against quar­ter­back Patrick Mahomes and an elite Kansas City offense capa­ble of dress­ing down any defense. Plus, Den­ver will be with­out the ser­vices of Bryce Calla­han — who has arguably been the Bron­cos’ best cor­ner­back in 2020 — due to a foot injury.

That means more pres­sure on Denver’s unproven cor­ner­back reserves such as rook­ies Michael Oje­mu­dia and Essang Bassey, which sets up for a Kansas City free-for-all sim­i­lar to the 43–16 blowout at Empow­er Field on Oct. 25. 

Denver’s last win against the Chiefs came with Pey­ton Man­ning at quar­ter­back on Sept. 17, 2015, in Kansas City. In the 10 games in the series since, the Bron­cos have been outscored 301–164. Don’t count on the Den­ver offense keep­ing up in a shootout even with start­ing quar­ter­back Drew Lock back tak­ing snaps.

Win at Arrow­head Sta­di­um? Bron­cos fans can for­get about it. There is a Roy­al Gorge-sized gap between the tal­ent on these two teams, and it’s a gap that’s only grown wider this year. The last three matchups have been clear evi­dence of that, with the Chiefs hold­ing a com­bined 71-point dif­fer­en­tial in those blowouts.

Bron­cos fans can only hope Hill doesn’t have enough rea­son to bust out his Shan­non Sharpe imi­ta­tion again: Hit­ting up the side­line phone to call in help for the oppos­ing defense. Because if recent his­to­ry between these two teams is any indi­ca­tion, the help Den­ver needs to slow this K.C. steam-train is way more than a phone call away.