Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes vs. Kansas City Chiefs • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Monday, Sept. 26, 2005

DENVER BRONCOS

General “I was really pleased with the effort of our football team. Offensively, going into the game, we felt we had to establish the run. At least run the ball a little more consistently than what we have been doing, very similar to what we did in the preseason. The same thing defensively; we felt (Kansas City) was a heckuva team running the football, and they have been very consistent over the last few years. I was really pleased with the effort we gave getting to the football, which is something you have to do against a team like Kansas City.”

On Special Teams Play “Special teams played extremely hard. The effort was there and when you play like that, good things usually happen. We knew how great Dante Hall was, and to have that kind of effort and discipline on special teams gave us the opportunity for the offense to go the distance.”

On Successful Misdirection Plays “They have to commit so many people to the run, that it opens it up for the boots and bootlegs to work. You have to establish the running game, and we were able to do that and it paid off in the second half.”

On Defensive Line Play “They have been pretty consistent, except for the fourth quarter in Miami. If the D-line isn’t consistent, then your defense isn’t really that good. It all starts with the D-line. I was really pleased with their effort tonight and we definitely have more depth than we had a year ago.”

On Scoring In The Red Zone “It took pressure off of us as a group by scoring in the red zone. We have not been as consistent as we would like, but we will continue to keep working on it.”

On Champ Bailey “I don’t know how serious it is, he will get an MRI tomorrow (Tuesday) and hopefully it’s not that bad.”

On The Running Game “We have been running the ball pretty good, we just didn’t do it in our first two games. We did have four games in the preseason where we ran the ball pretty good. We just have to get back to that form. It was about time that we were productive running the ball.”

On Starting Darrant Williams “We just felt Darrant has been playing consistent through camp. He’s competed. He’s really proved to us through the preseason and the first two regular season games that he deserved a chance to start. He took advantage of that opportunity tonight and played extremely well.”

On Rod Smith “Any time you get dinged two or three times in a game, you don’t want to take that chance of putting him back in, especially with the way the score was. If the game was on the line, knowing Rod, he would have wanted to go back into the game.”

On Challenging Kennison’s Fourth Quarter TD “I looked up on the board, and he didn’t have possession of the ball, and I thought there was a chance he might have been down at the 1-yard line. With both of those factors, I decided to challenge the play.”

Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Monday, Sept. 26, 2005

DENVER BRONCOS PLAYERS

DT GERARD WARREN On The Broncos Defense “We were all focused on playing 60 minutes. We had that mindset going into the game and we played hard every snap. Guys were giving all-out effort, second effort. We were going to come with everything we had, no matter what call we were in. We just wanted to get to the and not let him get comfortable.”

QB On Denver’s First Drive “It was big. Obviously, the struggles are there. You just have to forget about it each week and try to go and make yourself better in the red zone. We were able to start fast and the run game cranked up big time. It allowed us to do a lot of the things we like to do. We had a great gameplan and executed it well.”

On Denver’s Offense “We just did what we were coached to do. Last week, we started fast and went into the tank, this week we started fast and kept it rolling. Hats off to the guys around me.”

FS JOHN LYNCH On Denver’s Run Defense “To give yourself a chance to win, you have to stop the run. We were able to do that tonight against a very good team.”

On Champ Bailey’s Injury “Although you never want to play without Champ Bailey, we feel pretty good about the young guys. We have a lot of confidence in those players and we feel they can get the job done.”

WR ROD SMITH On His Concussion “I feel great….we won. We knew it was going to be a tough game, we knew it was going to be a hard-fought game. I got knocked down, but not knocked out. Hey, it happens when you play a physical team like that. I appreciate (the standing ovation) but I don’t remember it.”

On His Milestone “It’s special when you’ve been with a great organization and with great teammates and coaches. It’s really hard to describe it. It’s very special.”

LB General “We stepped up in all three phases tonight. We had 11 guys working at one time. It was a big win tonight for everyone.”

DE On Where This Defensive Line Ranks Among Recent Broncos History “It’s hard to judge because the season is not over yet. I think with the two Super Bowls, there is a pretty high standard of defensive line play. But over the last four years, this is the best group that I’ve been with. I think the best thing they do individually is their team speed, which is probably the difference. Also, they are a much more professional group than I have been around.

On Kansas City “It just wasn’t a Kansas City game. Quite honestly, I think Priest Holmes is hurt. And we got Trent Green rattled pretty early. They just weren’t themselves. I know the offensive line got tired which is why they started holding and not moving their feet.”

On Jake Plummer “I think Jake played one of the best games I’ve ever seen here from the QB position. He looked so poised.”

Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Monday, Sept. 26, 2005

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS HEAD COACH DICK VERMEIL

General “I would like to congratulate [Broncos Coach] Mike Shanahan, his coaches and his squad for playing a very fine football game. They beat us in every way you can beat us. The only thing we out-scored them on was penalty, 13-4. They are a better football team than us. Hopefully, they won’t be by the end of the year. But they were tonight, and I give them credit. The best thing about the game is that nobody got injured for us, just some feelings hurt. They executed extremely well. They are a good football team. I know their defense is a lot better than it was last year. I don’t know how many times they knocked [QB] Trent [Green] down, but it was a ton, and we’re lucky he’s alive. Anyway, I give them credit, we have to go back to work. They put together a great game plan, and they executed well. They just took us apart.

“They’re a better football team up here [in Denver]. The coaches got beat, and the players got beat. We coaches have to do a better job, too.”

Putting this Game Behind Them “Hopefully, we’ll have this behind us by the time we come back to work Wednesday. It’s a short week for us, and we have to play the Eagles. We’re 2-1 and not 0-3 like we were at this time last year.”

On Chiefs’ Pass Protection “We knew we would have problems with pass protection coming in, and we didn’t solve it during the game. We came in and thought we had solved our problems, but then [the Broncos] came in and executed and showed that we didn’t solve those problems. Trent got hit too many times, and we had a hard time getting the ball down the field.”

On Chiefs’ Penalties “Quite a few of them [penalties] were holding. We couldn’t block them, so we were grabbing them. There were way too many penalties, and there’s no excuse for it. Every time we got something going, we had penalties that stopped us.”

Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Monday, Sept. 26, 2005

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS PLAYERS

QB TRENT GREEN General “It had nothing to do with the building [the stadium]. We’ve played these guys well other times. It had nothing to do with the field, stadium or crowd. They just played better than us. They outplayed us in all three phases of the game, and beat us tonight.” On the Broncos Defense “They didn’t heavily blitz us until the end when we were running no-huddle [offense]. They mixed it up early and were able to put pressure on us with four linemen and one linebacker. It was very frustrating. We had anticipated a lot of blitzes, and they played at a great level. We knew coming in that their linebackers were fast, and they broke up both our running and passing games. DE Trevor Pryce had a great game tonight.” On the Chiefs Offense “We had no rhythm out there. In the huddle we said we needed to get first downs, and when we did get them, it seemed like we always had penalties. You have to give credit to them. We had several opportunities to make plays but we didn’t do it. Coming in, we hadn’t trailed in eight quarters, and so when we got the ball first, we thought we’d go down and score.”

OT JORDAN BLACK On Replacing OT Willie Roaf “I have to make an apology to the fans of Kansas City for not holding up my part and helping this team win. I don’t think I played how I should have. I guess they [Denver] have our number.”

S SAMMY KNIGHT General “They physically beat us, and we have to tip our hats to Denver. We saw some different things tonight, and we have to go out and make some adjustments to make something positive out of this. They ran the ball well and passed the ball well against us.”

LB KAWIKA MITCHELL General “This loss is embarrassing. They’re a good running team. That’s what our defense tries to do first is stop the run. With a team that runs that much on us, there’s no way we can win the game.” On the Crowd “The crowd was in the game from the very beginning, and we didn’t take them out of the game. The Broncos are a feel-good team, and they fed off their fans.”

FB TONY RICHARDSON General “We’ve got to protect our quarterback and we didn’t do that tonight. We just didn’t match their intensity. They made more plays than we did tonight. You can’t get frustrated as a professional athlete, and nobody does it better than Trent Green.” On Next Week vs. Eagles “Philadelphia doesn’t care what happened tonight. They will watch film on us and try to come into Kansas City and get a win.”

Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Monday, Sept. 26, 2005

POSTGAME NOTES

♦ Denver is now either 2-1 or 3-0 after three games under Mike Shanahan for the 10th time in 11 seasons; the lone exception was an 0-3 start in 1999.

♦ Series Stuff. Kansas City now leads the all-time series by 50-40; Denver leads by 28-18 at home, including 5-0 at INVESCO Field.

♦ This marked the seventh win by Denver in the series of 20 or more points (Kansas City has 16; only five since 1973; all of Denver’s are since 1978). The largest margin of victory by the Broncos is 27, coming in 1996 in Denver (34-7).

♦ This marked just the sixth time that Denver and Kansas City played the third game of the season, last doing so in 1993. Kansas City owns a 4-2 edge in these games (year, Denver record, result):

1970 2-0 KANSAS CITY W 26-13 1988 1-1 at Kansas City L 13-20 1971 0-1-1 KANSAS CITY L 3-16 1993 2-0 at Kansas City L 7-15 1972 1-1 KANSAS CITY L 24-45 2005 1-1 KANSAS CITY W 30-10

♦ 454. In the last eight games, Denver and Kansas City have combined to score 454 points (239 by the Chiefs, 215 by the Broncos). In 90 games all-time, the two have combined for 3,943 points (2,164 by KC, 1,779 by DEN), as they are dueling with Oakland-San Diego and New England-N.Y. Jets to become the first exclusive AFL-AFC rivalry to reach the 4,000-point plateau. Say what? All-time series points in the NFL (regular season, franchises may have been in multiple cities):

Detroit-Green Bay 5,794 N.Y. Giants-Philadelphia 5,119 Denver-Kansas City 3,943 Chicago-Green Bay 5,595 St. Louis-San Francisco 4,947 Oakland-San Diego 3,917 Philadelphia-Washington 5,570 Arizona-Washington 4,737 New England-N.Y. Jets 3,896 N.Y. Giants-Washington 5,461 Arizona-N.Y. Giants 4,707 Chicago-Detroit 5,436 *Cleveland-Pittsburgh 4,174

♦ Denver’s 17 first quarter points were a season high in a quarter; in 2004, the Broncos scored 20 in the first quarter at Tennessee and 17 in the first at New Orleans, and in 2003, had 21 points in the first against Oakland; this thus tied for Denver’s third most productive first quarter over the last three seasons.

♦ 200. Denver has now scored in 200 straight regular season games--the third longest active streak in the NFL; Minnesota (223) and Green Bay (220) are ahead of the Broncos. Ironically, CU became just the 12th team in NCAA Division I-A to do the same, doing so last Saturday in its 23-3 setback at Miami, Fla.

♦ WR Rod Smith (7-80, 1 TD). He became the 24th player in NFL history to go over the 10,000 yard mark in career receiving, and officially the first undrafted player to do so, finishing the game with 10,025. He caught at least one pass for the 95th consecutive game, and his touchdown reception was No. 60 of his career, both adding to his Bronco records. He has 63 overall career touchdowns (adding in rushing and returns), two away from tying for the most in Bronco history.

♦ Denver Rushing. The Broncos had 221 yards rushing, its most since gaining 254 at Oakland last Oct. 17; it also stands as the fifth most rushing yards this decade:

Nov. 26, 2000 at Seattle 301 Oct. 17, 2004 at Oakland 254 Dec. 3, 2000 at New Orleans 283 Dec. 21, 2003 at Indianapolis 227 Dec. 7, 2003 KANSAS CITY 270 Sept. 26, 2005 KANSAS CITY 221 Dec. 29, 2002 ARIZONA 259

MISCELLANEOUS STATS OF NOTE ♦ Stat of the game: in the first half, 27 of Kansas City’s 39 plays went for three yards or less, with just 3 of 10 or longer (40 of their 68 in the game wound up netting three or fewer). ♦ Jeckyll & Hyde. Denver ran 19 second down plays and averaged 10.4 per play, but gained 5 net yards on 8 third down plays. ♦ Kansas City started five of nine drives at or inside the 20, bringing the season total for Denver opponents to exactly half: 16 of 32. ♦ Denver had been in the lead for just 9:15 heading into tonight, but never trailed en route to leading 52:50.