ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Hate is such a mean-spirited word -- unless it’s uttered in the context of football, which can be a mean-spirited game.
Bradley Chubb and Courtland Sutton, the Broncos’ first- and second-round picks in the 2018 NFL draft, have each said, on separate occasions, they hate the Chiefs.
The dark seed of their loathing against the Kansas City team is the Broncos’ 13-game losing streak against the Chiefs, going back to the 2015 season. Chubb and Sutton have never beaten the Chiefs. And the Chiefs have won six consecutive AFC West Division titles.
And so they hate the Chiefs.
Now come the Las Vegas Raiders on the Broncos’ schedule. The game is this Sunday at Las Vegas (2:25 p.m. MT kickoff). Like the Chiefs and Broncos, the Raiders play within the AFC West.
The hate inside the Broncos’ locker room has spread.
“I hate ‘em, to be honest with you,’’ Chubb said of the Raiders at his locker Wednesday. “I hate ‘em. There’s only a few teams in the league I hate and they’re one of them. Because every time we go there it seems like it hasn’t (gone) in our favor.”
Indeed, the Broncos haven’t won on the Raiders’ home turf – Oakland from 2016-19, Las Vegas in 2020-21 – since 2015. And they’ve lost four in a row overall to the Silver and Black.
“It’s always a tough game. I always know it's going to be a good matchup. I always know it's going to be -- I'm not going to say 'dirty,' but they talk and stuff, we talk and stuff and it's going back-n-forth,’’ Chubb said.
Funny how it works. No one inside the Broncos’ locker room has ever said they hate the Chargers, another AFC West team. Even during their ongoing six-year postseason drought, the Broncos have gone 7-5 against the Chargers. The Chargers aren’t worth hating.
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