Opening statement
“A heck of a football game, great game. My hat goes off to [Broncos Head Coach] Nathaniel [Hackett] and the job that he’s done here. Those guys never gave up, down 27 to nothing. Tribute to the offense and defense playing hard, the second quarterback comes in, and they still continue to play hard. I’ve got to give a couple of shoutouts to [TE Travis] Kelce first of all, at 10,000 career yards, he broke that tonight and then seven years in a row of 1,000-yard seasons. I thought that our defense played hard, tremendous with the exception of a couple of interceptions there and the defense was in a bad position, short field but overall, they really played hard and aggressively, and listen, [RB Jerick] McKinnon at 112 yards receiving, two TDs, [RB Isiah] Pacheco 70 yards, nothing better than that. The last one, [WR] JuJu [Smith-Schuster] had 9 catches for 74 yards and then [QB] Pat [Mahomes], I know I am going to be asked about that. Every quarterback that has played in this league for a while has a game like that. The one great thing about him is, he kept firing and had a lot of big plays and so you can’t take away the three interceptions but there sure were some good ones in between those and it’s a great learning experience but every great one’s had that as well. It’s one of those days and we were able to work through and everyone kept battling and finished the game.”
On QB Patrick Mahomes’ mistakes
“He’ll see the tape. He knew where he goofed, but he’ll go back and look at the tape once we have a chance to do that. You can see him getting a feel for the game as we did.”
On continuing to throw the ball with a big lead in the third quarter
“We were trying to fix it and keep the pedal down. In these games, you’ve got to stay on top of It, so that’s what we’re doing.”
On QB Patrick Mahomes keeping composure after mistakes
“He’s a great player, first of all. He’s got a great attitude and he’s got good people around him. He trusts his players. The one to [Marquez Valdes-Scantling] Scantling was a big play, he actually checked to that route when Scantling ran and it was a play that we kind of narrow things down when it comes down to the end of the game, what plays are your favorites, and that was one of his favorites but it does have an alert on it where he had to call [WR Marquez Valdes-]Scantling on that route. His composure, he’s great with it. He’ll learn and learn from mistakes, which is how everybody does.”
On finishing the game when you’re ahead
“We talk about that all the time. This is the National Football League, so the margin between winning and losing is like this [very small]. This team’s had a bunch of games 10 or 12 games where it was a one-score game so that 27 to nothing lead, you’ve got to stay on top. Stay on top of it in any way. We tried to do that all the way around.”
On why the lead became smaller
“It was just the turnovers mainly. That got us and they battled back through.”
On QB Patrick Mahomes and his touchdown pass to RB Jerick McKinnon
“That wasn’t quite like it was drawn up. This is hard to say, it’s hard for people to see that but it’s hard for people to take out the three interceptions and he really had a heck of a game from my eyes, so that’s where I’m at but you can’t, obviously, have three. I kind of saw it, I was on the other side of the field, but I got a pretty good idea of what he did there.”
On a potential AFC West Championship
“I’m going to reserve that because that can be taken a few different ways. I’m going to just reserve that until it happens. I want to make sure we stay on top of it here. If the Chargers happen to win, we’ve got to make sure we’re right ahead.”