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Twitter Explodes Over Denver Broncos' Choke Job Versus the Chiefs

On Twitter, both Denver Broncos fans and haters consistently used the word "choke" to describe the team's 27-23 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on the October 1 edition of Monday Night Football.
October 2, 2018
Image: Demaryius Thomas making a valiant but vain effort to reach an overthrown pass from quarterback Case Keenum that would have resulted in a victory for the Denver Broncos.
Demaryius Thomas making a valiant but vain effort to reach an overthrown pass from quarterback Case Keenum that would have resulted in a victory for the Denver Broncos. NFL via YouTube

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On Twitter, both Denver Broncos fans and haters consistently used the word "choke" to describe the team's 27-23 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on the October 1 edition of Monday Night Football.

Which is a damn good indication that there was a whole lot of gagging goin' on.

The Broncos' collapse was historic; it marked the first time that the squad had blown a ten-point, fourth-quarter lead at home since 2004. And the pain of witnessing it was magnified by circumstances.

Pretty much every objective Denver loyalist expected the Chiefs to deliver a prime-time humiliation, given the emergence of quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the most exciting young player to enter the league in years. But rather than laying down and allowing themselves to be steamrolled, as the Colorado Rockies had versus the Los Angeles Dodgers in a contest earlier in the day that determined the National League West champ, the Men of Orange not only acquitted themselves well against KC, but seemed on the road to triumph by building a 23-10 advantage.

But during the final frame, everything went to hell. The Broncos' offense under Keenum, which had generally been efficient up until then, suddenly evaporated, while Mahomes did his best A Star Is Born impression, repeatedly evading a fearsome pass rush from Von Miller and company to deliver the goods, not to mention a go-ahead touchdown with under two minutes to go.

That gave Keenum a chance for some last-ditch heroics of the sort he demonstrated during Denver's week two W against the Oakland Raiders. But after maneuvering his cohorts into the Chiefs' end of the field, he badly overthrew a wide-open Demaryius Thomas for what would have been the dagger, forcing a fourth-down hook-and-lateral attempt that wasn't well executed — though it left the attendees at Mile High Stadium feeling like they had been.

Afterward, frustrated folks took to social media to castigate Keenum, head coach Vance Joseph, defensive coordinator Joe Woods and plenty of others, while lovers of the Chiefs and other Broncos rivals exalted using very similar terminology.

Choke, choke, choke.

See what we mean by counting down our picks for the most memorable tweets about this particular catastrophe.

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Image: Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts began his career with Westword in 1990 as music editor. In 1999, he took on a new role, full-time media reporter, as author of a column called The Message. In 2008, he became the lead writer for Westword's news blog, The Latest Word, a position he held until January 2023. Michael continues to freelance for Westword, covering everything from business to sports and the media; he also contributes to Jazziz, a national music magazine. He holds a bachelor's degree from what is now Colorado Mesa University and master's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Northwestern University.
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