ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Hear that? You could almost hear the Kansas City Chiefs snickering in their locker room as they were about to play the Broncos the past seven years.
An AFC West rivalry? The Chiefs have defeated the Broncos 15 games in a row, a streak that goes back to the worst game of Peyton Manning’s career in 2015.
Were the Lakers and Clippers a rivalry in the 80s and 90s? Are the Globetrotters and Generals a rivalry? Now you have an idea of the Broncos-Chiefs’ rivalry during this 15-game losing skid.
“I wouldn’t call it a rivalry,’’ said Frank Clark, a new Broncos’ outside linebacker who spent the previous four seasons with the Chiefs. “A rivalry is competitive. True or false? I’m on the Broncos now and I’ve been on the other side. And we didn’t call it a rivalry then.
“Until we become competitive enough – we have to beat the team. We have to win our division. We have to do a few things, it’s not just about the Chiefs. It’s things we have to do here. We have to get our own ball together here in order for us to go out there and compete in order for it become one of those factions.’’
So if not a rivalry, what is the Broncos and Chiefs?
“A football game between two teams,’’ Clark said.
Clark’s words may sting. But as they say, the truth hurts. Luckily for the Broncos they started plucking players away from the Chiefs for 2023. Fullback Michael Burton was the first. Clark came in mid-June on a one-year, $5.45 million contract.
“At the end of the day football is about falling in love with the players,’’ Clark said. “Not so much the team. Just keeping it real. You build relationship with the guys. One thing I’ve been able to do is keep those relationships. What we were able to do in Kansas (City) was special. A four-year run, two Super Bowls, three AFC titles. It was fun. But all good things come to an end. It’s a new journey. It’s all part of the journey. Year 9, new start, fresh start out here in Denver. I’m just enjoying myself.”
Clark, 30, came out of Michigan – hello, rivalry with Ohio State – as a second-round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 2015. He was quarterback Russell Wilson’s teammates for four years, recorded 14.0 sacks, counting the postseason, in his final season there in 2018, and propelled that production into a $104 million contract with the Chiefs.
Four years later, all those postseason runs through to the AFC Championship Game and Super Bowl helped lift Clark to third all-time among NFL postseason leaders with 13.5 sacks – just 3.0 sacks behind the record-holder Willie McGinest. But as Clark said – and then re-worded – all good things must come to an end.
“I wouldn’t say it was the end. It’s never the end when you get the job finished,’’ Clark said. “A lot of people don’t understand the finish because they don’t get the job done. I actually hit the finish line twice with Kansas City. And we probably could have put it off as three times.
“At the end of the day I finished my job there. Being here in Denver, coach (Sean) Payton, the staff, them giving me a chance, at the end of the day they had offers on the table for me. When you’re the Broncos and you want somebody, that’s just any team, when you’re pursuing somebody, they made that pretty obvious they wanted me to part of their organization.”
So what about the Russell Wilson that was Clark’s teammate in Seattle (when Wilson was 27 to 30 years old) compared to the Wilson he has now as his teammate in Denver (at 34 years old)?
“We’ve got a helluva head coach, man, Sean Payton is a helluva coach,’’ Clark said. “He believes in his players, he believes in his quarterback. I can’t say that about a lot of people but I believe in Russ. When you trust your quarterback you believe in what that man can do.
“Mentality is (Wilson) is still dangerous. Don’t get it twisted. Players are going to age. The skill is going to fall back sometimes. I’m not saying that’s happened to Russ. You just got to understand, Russ is a veteran. He’s a guy who’s won on multiple levels. He’s been part of successful teams, he’s been part of teams that were not successful. I was part of Seattle teams that were successful, I was part of teams where we didn’t make the playoffs.
“But it was the same Russ. I don’t think Russ changes. Don’t think a few years go by, and a bad season is going to shake a guy. No, bro. We start fresh every year. Every summer is a fresh start.”
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