Monday Night Football: Kansas City vs. Denver

Second Mecklenburg pic in two days = internet may explode

We turn the page on yet another chapter of The Tecmo Bowl season, and find ourselves staring face to face with a pivotal battle in the AFC West between the Chiefs and the Broncos. Kansas City stands two games behind Denver in first, and are battling their way back from the basement of the AFC with hefty helpings of Christian Okoye bone-crushing runs and Barry Word consuming defenses for fuel. The only problem is they now face the No.2-ranked defense in Denver, led by the fetal-position-inducing hits by Karl Mecklenburg. With San Diego's loss yesterday, the Broncos can take control of the division and put Kansas City's playoff hopes on ice all in the same game by claiming victory. Let's head to Mile High for some football and a little bit of oxygen deprivation!

Quarter One
Kansas City nearly paves the way to an early Denver score when Todd McNair fumbles the opening kickoff, but Alfredo Roberts scoops it up and gets the ball to the Kansas City 23-yard line. Steve DeBerg goes to the air on the first play from scrimmage, threading it in coverage to Stephone Paige in Denver's side of the field. Barry Word and Christian Okoye get it on back to back runs for a huge total of 7 yards, as only a COM-controlled attack by both backs could do, and facing 3rd and 3 the Chiefs go back to Word. He gets the first down with an additional 10 yards tacked on, but is stuffed three plays later on another 3rd and 3 situation, prompting Nick Lowery to grace the field with his future Hall-of-Fame leg. He mistakenly bounces it off the right upright from 35 yards out, and sees his nickname flips from Nick the Kick to something else that rhymes with Nick that we don't want little children reading.

As bodies of broken Broncos lay strewn on the field

The Broncos begin from their own 20-yard line after an angst-ridden boot by Lowery goes for a touchback. John Elway is promptly crushed by some fellows in red, led by Neil Smith, for a loss of eight yards. Bobby Humphrey loses an additional two on the next play, and so facing 3rd-and-20, Elway has nothing better to do than to be sacked just two yards from Safety World and the Chiefs are suddenly getting the ball back.

J.J. Birden is the punt returner, and his legs burden the Broncos when he gets the ball to their side of the field. Okoye gets the ball on first down, and immediately thunderbooms his way for 13 yards, and could possibly have had more with a wide open field had his shoelace not gotten caught in one of the earth's fissures.

Quarter Two
Word to your mother for 3 yards on first down, followed by a DeBerg pass that is blocked at the line of scrimmage, and the Chiefs are facing another third down dilemma. DeBerg gets the call to go back to the air, and for a moment this looks like a wise decision with a wide open Alfredo Roberts in the end zone. Unfortunately, his pass knocks over a nachos vendor, sending hot cheese and jalapenos hurtling into the sky, followed by a football kicked by Nick Lowery from 32 that hurtles through the uprights this time for three points.

Kansas City leads 3-0

Denver puts together another drive that's sure to see offensive coaches selling jock straps next year with a Humphrey run for a loss and two batted away passes, one from the flea flicker set-up. Mike Horan's punt winds up somewhere in the mesosphere, and the Chiefs get a new ball and a new set of downs to boot.

And suddenly, my Tecmo decisions
aren't so crazy after all

From the gun, DeBerg continues his streak of successfully incomplete passes. On second down, the streak is broken when his laser up the middle to Roberts is brought in at the Denver 45-yard line. A play action pass to Robb Thomas is broken up by two Denver defenders and the extra 'B' in his first name, and after Warren Powers sacks DeBerg back into Chiefs' territory it's third down. DeBerg goes out of the gun again, but his pass to Word is read all the way and the Chiefs are out to punt--scratch that, it looks like...it looks like Coach Mary Schottenheimer is sending Nick the Kick back out on the field! After missing one from 33 and another bouncing in off the uprights from 32, he's now being given a shot from those two combined...plus 2 more yards!

I don't want to spoil what happens, so I'll just begin with Denver's next drive from midfield. With 1:32 remaining on the clock, the Broncos smartly go with Everyday Steve Sewell for 13 yards. Humphrey tacks on 15 more over two more rushes, and the Broncos are down to 17 seconds left in the half. And just to prove that maybe even after watching Tecmo games for nearly 20 years I still don't know it all, Denver goes for one more play instead of kicking the automatic field goal that the COM almost always chooses under 20 seconds. This time it pays off for the men in orange, when Elway laces a beauty to Mark Jackson from 21-yards out, and the Broncos march into halftime with a lead they've had for exactly 10 seconds.

Halftime - Broncos 7, Chiefs 3

Quarter Three
Denver takes the ball in the second half with hopes of building on their lead. They start at their own thirty on first down, where they also start on second when Humphrey gets nowhere. Sewell takes it around the left side for six yards, and on 3rd and 4 we see when exactly the Broncos saved their big play for, as Elway hits Jackson at the Chiefs' 32-yard line. Two plays later, and Vance Johnson takes in his first pass of the game, dodging four Kansas City tacklers and Kip Winger in a rickshaw for Denver's second touchdown.

Denver leads 14-3

Kansas City gets a chance to answer with good field position at the 44-yard line. Okoye and Word share the first two carries for a total of 0 yards, about as many as left tackle Rich Baldinger has on the day, and on 3rd and 10 DeBerg goes to the air, finding Roberts for 15 yards into Denver territory. Word and Okoye pick it up on the next two plays for a total of 15 yards to the Broncos' 24-yard line. DeBerg faces a blitz on first and second down, and both times throws a pass that only hits the fingertips of Broncos' defenders. On 3rd and 10, Steve makes it happen again with a pass to Word on the run, who gains 14 yards to the Denver 9. Okoye gets it all the way to the 2-yard line on the next play, but a Rocky Mountain avalanche led by Marc Munford comes down on DeBerg, who loses 10 yards. On 3rd and goal from the 12-yard line, the Chiefs go with play-action and a pass to Okoye is overthrown in the end zone as the quarter comes to a quiet end.

Quarter Four
Lowery makes it a decent 50/50 day with a kick through the uprights from 30 yards out.

Denver leads 14-6

Thanks to the marquee, we now know Lowery didn't slip

Down by 8 with just under five minutes to go, Kansas City takes the less-conservative option and goes with the onside kick. John Elway recovers it and immediately begins digging into the turf at Mile High as eleven Chiefs plus a couple glue factory workers come tumbling toward him. Denver starts from their own 48, and one play later start forty more yards down the field after a big connection with Jackson. Elway looks to Johnson in the back of the end zone to put this one away, but Kevin Ross keeps his Chiefs in the game with a pick and touchback.

Okoye gets the ball on first down and gains 9 yards. Word manages to get the first down on the next play, but fumbles it over to Karl Mecklenburg who doesn't get any return yards due to his biting a chunk out of the football.

John Elway apparently doesn't want the ball back yet, as his pass via the flea flicker is intercepted for a second time by Kevin Ross in the end zone.

He's so scary, you can't even see him

The Chiefs get their season-defining drive underway with a Word handoff, who busts his way for 20 yards near midfield. DeBerg finds Paige on first down for 12 yards into Denver territory. Word gains another 8, and the Chiefs are forced to take their last time-out when he can't get out of bounds. Two straight passes to Paige in the end zone come with incompletions, and now Kansas City faces 3rd down with just 58 seconds to go. Coach Schottenheimer flips through his book for possible game-winning third down plays, and goes with the most obvious--a pitch to Okoye, who nightmares his way for a 33-yard touchdown about 18 minutes after he was asked to do so. The Chiefs pass on a game-tying 2-point conversion, and go for the sure extra point.

Denver leads 14-13

Kansas City fans everywhere are SMHing when the extra-point/onside kick plan fails, knowing they should have gone for two instead, and Denver wisely runs out the clock with surprisingly their first Johnson reverse of the day.

Final: Broncos 14, Chiefs 13

The Chiefs leave Denver two points from a win and from seeing their hopes for a playoff spot realized. After an inspiring 3-game win streak to pull themselves from a 2-5 debacle, they're now looking up at quite a few other teams in the AFC jockeying for position. Kansas City's run game was very present, with Word and Okoye teaming up for 122 yards, and DeBerg out-slung Elway on the field, but it all came down to missed opportunities. Also, Nick Lowery has to feel like a pretty big goat after this one--not for coming up short from 67-yards out, but from shanking a 33-yarder that turned out to be a game-changer. Denver sneaks away with this one after a shoddy performance, and stand alone atop the AFC West for at least one week. The Chiefs, meanwhile, have company in the Raiders at the bottom, and judging from what we know about Bob Golic, that's a party that not many people will come out of alive.