Broncos Clips
The Chiefs and Broncos play the final Week 1 game, meeting on Monday Night Football.
The Chiefs already had ruled out offensive tackle Josh Simmons (back) and safety Chamarri Conner (knee).
Their healthy scratches are quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, tight end Jared Wiley, offensive tackle Diego Pounds, defensive tackle Bryson Eason and linebacker Jack Pyburn. Nussmeier is the team’s emergency third quarterback.
The Broncos did not have any injuries heading into Week 1, so all of their inactives are healthy scratches.
Quarterback Sam Ehlinger, running back Tyler Badie, offensive lineman Kage Casey, tight end Dallen Bentley, defensive lineman Jordan Jackson and defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim are inactive for Monday night’s game against the Chiefs. Ehlinger will serve as the emergency third quarterback.
That means Jarrett Stidham officially held onto the backup job behind Bo Nix.
Fourth-round rookie running back Jonah Coleman is dressed.
Led by the Bears’ 59-point explosion in Charlotte, the NFL’s first week of the season has seen pinball machine-level scoring.
And the all-time Week 1 record is in reach.
Via Mark Maske of Front Office Sports, the 750 total points scored through 15 games fall only 41 short of the all-time Week 1 record. So with 42 or more between the Broncos and Chiefs on Monday night, the record will fall.
In his first Week 1 without coaching one of the NFL’s 32 teams since 2006 (when he was the Vikings’ defensive coordinator), Mike Tomlin shared his thoughts on the matter on NBC. He pointed to the current methods of practice and preparation.
“There’s less violence in team development,” Tomlin said. “There are less padded practices. And even the drills that they do are more geared toward skill development, 7-on-7, and things of that nature. Defenses spend less time shedding blocks and tackling than they used to 25 years ago when I came in the league.”
Tomlin has also said that mobile quarterbacks have an edge early in the year, because defenders aren’t allowed to tackle quarterbacks in practice.
The NFL likes high-scoring games. Over the years, the rules have been tweaked to encourage more of it. Which means that there surely will be a press release on Tuesday with all sorts of statistics about the scoring in the Week 1 games.
And, with at least 42 points tonight, a headline that Week 1 of the 2026 season was the highest-scoring Week 1 of all time.
The Broncos released wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey on Monday, the team announced.
Multiple reports say it’s a procedural move, and Humphrey will re-sign with the team this week.
He would have been inactive for Monday night’s game against the Chiefs.
The Broncos’ wide receivers for tonight are Jaylen Waddle, Courtland Sutton, Pat Bryant, Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin.
The team also announced the elevations of long snapper Mitchell Fraboni and fullback Adam Prentice from the practice squad to the game-day roster.
Fraboni, who is entering his fifth season with the Broncos, has appeared in 55 regular-season games and three postseason contests throughout his time in Denver.
Prentice, a sixth-year player, appeared in all 17 regular-season games during his first season with the Broncos in 2025. He made three starts. Prentice — who played 19 percent of the Broncos’ offensive snaps and 45 percent of the team’s special teams snaps during the regular season — also appeared in both postseason games for Denver.
The Chiefs announced a pair of additions to their roster for Monday night’s game against the Broncos.
They have elevated defensive tackle Marcus Harris and fullback Ben VanSumeren from the practice squad. Both players will revert back after the game.
Harris signed to the practice squad late last season and returned to it after being released this summer. He entered the league as a 2024 seventh-round pick in Houston and has never played in a regular season game.
VanSumeren was in camp with the Bills and signed to the Chiefs’ practice squad earlier this month. He appeared in 21 games for the Eagles over the last three seasons.
Jaguars wide receiver Brian Thomas is managing a shoulder injury after the team’s season-opening win over the Browns.
Thomas left the win due to the injury and head coach Liam Coen told reporters on Monday that the wideout will be limited in practice over the coming days. Coen does not expect the injury to impact Thomas’s availability against the Broncos in Week 2, however.
“I fully imagine him being able to play this game, no issues, just might not be able to get hit throughout the week or something,” Coen said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com.
Thomas had three catches for 40 yards on Sunday.
Coen also said that defensive end BJ Green is expected to miss the Broncos game. Green is dealing with an elbow injury.
The dream team has had an unexpected detour.
After losing to the 49ers badly in Melbourne, and given Myles Garrett’s candid remarks about the impact of his health on his performance, Garrett will have knee surgery and be placed on injured reserve, per multiple reports.
It’s a stunning development for a Rams team that became the odds-on favorites to win the Super Bowl after Garrett’s arrival in June. His presence lured Aaron Donald out of retirement. Now, Donald will be playing for at least four games (if Donald plays in Week 2) without Garrett.
And it won’t be an easy road. The Rams host the Giants next Monday night. The following Sunday night, they face the Broncos in Denver. Then, the Rams head to Philly for a date with the Eagles. After that, the Rams return home for a Monday night showdown with Josh Allen and the Bills.
The Denver Broncos’ shot at an appearance in Super Bowl LX arguably was derailed by an injury to quarterback Bo Nix. As the 2026 season begins, Nix and the rest of the team are healthy.
Denver has no injury designations in advance of the Monday night opener against the Chiefs in Kansas City.
Only receiver Marvin Mims appeared on the Week 1 injury report. He fully participated in practice on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with a foot injury.
No team will be much healthier than it is in Week 1. The Broncos are good to go, as they try to win the AFC West for the second straight year. The extent to which they can stay that way will be a major factor in whether they can get back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2015.
When Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes makes his return on Monday night after a December 2025 torn ACL, his left tackle will be an undrafted rookie.
Josh Simmons, a first-round pick in 2025, has been ruled out for the game against the Broncos with a back injury. Kahlil Benson will start at left tackle in his first career game.
Also out for the Chiefs will be defensive back Chamarri Conner, who has a knee injury.
No other Chiefs player has an injury designation. Which means that Mahomes will indeed play. And that the Broncos will test Benson in an effort to get to Mahomes.
The Chiefs, who finished 6-11 in 2025, are 2.5-point favorites against the Broncos, who won the division and secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
Defensive lineman Chris Jones was added to the Chiefs’ injury report on Friday.
Jones was a limited participant in practice and he is listed with a calf injury. The team will issue their final injury report for Monday night’s game against the Broncos on Saturday and that will provide a better idea of Jones’s outlook for the opener.
The outlook for left tackle Josh Simmons remains dim. He missed practice again with a back injury.
Defensive back Chamarri Conner (knee) also remained out of practice. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes (knee), linebacker Jack Cochrane (knee), defensive end Ashton Gillotte (foot), wide receiver Rashee Rice (knee), guard Trey Smith (hip), cornerback L’Jarius Sneed (knee), defensive end R Mason Thomas (hamstring), and wide receiver Xavier Worthy (shoulder) all remained full participants in practice.
Throughout the offseason, Chiefs players and coaches have spoken with a lot of excitement about running back Kenneth Walker and what he can bring to the offense.
That trend continued on Thursday with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who noted the versatility Walker has displayed in practice through training camp.
“You’ve got to use that guy,” Mahomes said of Walker in his Thursday press conference. “I mean, he’s a talented football player. He runs tough. He has speed. He can break a touchdown at any moment. He can catch the ball. He does kind of it all.
“And so, when you have those guys on your team, you find ways to get them the football. If that’s either just handing the ball off to them or throwing it to them, you’ve got to and so we got him for a reason. He came in with the right mindset and mentality, and he’s really attacked this offseason. And so, I think he’s as excited as anybody to get out there in Arrowhead and have Chiefs Kingdom behind him, and so him as well as Emmett [Johnson] and Brashard [Smith], I mean, we’ve got a good running back room, and we’ll utilize those guys within this offense.”
The first chance we’ll all have to see Walker with the Chiefs will be on Monday night when the club takes on the Broncos.
