The Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos have played 132 times since 1960, when Kansas City was still known as the Dallas Texans before the AFL-NFL merger.

The Chiefs currently lead the series 73-59. Kansas City has lost four out of the last five matchups against Denver, with the Broncos coming off an AFC West-winning season that saw them nearly make the Super Bowl.

This AFC West rivalry is storied and full of history. However, a hidden layer emerges heading into Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season, and it centers on the personal connections between the coaching staffs on both sidelines.

Vance Joseph and Eric Bieniemy: Brothers from Boulder to the NFL

Relationships in football run deep, and some in this upcoming game run deeper than most. Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy go back a long way. They were teammates on Colorado’s national championship team in the 1990 season. They’re fraternity brothers from their days with the CU Buffs, and they consider themselves brothers in the fraternity of football.

“We try not to talk football a lot,” Bieniemy said. “Now, we’ll talk football during the offseason, but during the season we talk about a lot of different things. It’s great having him because we’ve known each other; it seems like an eternity. But one thing I’ll say about Vance (Joseph): First of all, Vance is an outstanding coach. He’s done a great job with that defense. Those guys played their asses off. I mean, they were in that AFC Championship Game, and probably a few plays away (from the Super Bowl).”

“We’ve talked, what, three times this week,’’ Joseph said this week. “But we have a rule: We don’t talk two days out. So starting Saturday, no conversations until after the game. But, yeah, he’s my brother. Frat brother, teammates.”

The two have maintained a close friendship during the decades that followed as both advanced their NFL careers, with Joseph established as the defensive coordinator in Denver and Bieniemy returning as the offensive coordinator for Kansas City. That close friendship has now become a rivalry as the two coaches are set to face off on Monday night.

The first few games of the season, as Andy Reid says, are always a challenge. Part of that challenge is trying to decipher and understand what the opponent plans to do when there hasn’t been much legitimate tape to draw from during the preseason. You can rely on some of what you’ve seen in the past, in the case of Joseph, but what’s most important is not underestimating the opponent. Bieniemy knows exactly what his offense needs to do to succeed against Joseph’s unit. Similarly, Joseph knows exactly what to expect from Bieniemy and the players under his tutelage.

“When it’s all said and done, we got to make sure that we go out there and play,” Bieniemy said. “We’ve got to play hard (and) fast. We got to have a sense of urgency and a sense of purpose. We’ve got to be able to weather the highs, and on top of that, we got to be resilient through the lows. So, we will be challenged. VJ does a great job, but we want to find a way to make sure that we can secure victory any which way we can.”

“He’s always been the Firestarter,’’ Joseph said. “Always been an intense competitor, from a player to a coach to a teammate. He’s going to bring accountability, bring a discipline. Whatever they’re doing offensively, his touch and his strength are to make them do it efficiently and do it right all the time.”

Davis Webb’s debut and the Mahomes & Spagnuolo connections

As the Broncos offense takes the field for their first snap on Monday night, it will be Denver offensive coordinator Davis Webb’s first opportunity to call plays as a coach. Players on the opposing Kansas City sideline have been a part of Webb’s journey and have seen him every step of the way up to this point.

It starts with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who was in the same quarterback room at Texas Tech with Webb. While Webb was at one point the veteran and Mahomes was waiting in the wings, Mahomes actually pushed Webb out of Texas Tech. Webb even acknowledged that Mahomes forced his transfer to the University of California. While that could breed bitterness, there are no hard feelings between Webb and Mahomes. They recognize the competitive nature of the business and that everyone has to walk their own path.

“I don’t think I’m going to text Pat (Mahomes) until pregame, then I’ll hit him up,” Webb said Thursday. “That’s been kind of our tradition on game weeks. We always talk for a good 15 minutes. We were great teammates when he was a freshman, I was a sophomore, when he was a sophomore, and I was a junior. Then he made me transfer out to Cal. But him and I are still really, really close. I love Pat.”

Mahomes wasn’t the only one on the Kansas City sideline with a relationship with Webb, either. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has familiarity with him as well. In fact, Spagnuolo recognized early that Webb had the coaching gene in him. When Spagnuolo was the interim head coach of the New York Giants coming down the stretch in 2017, Webb was one of the players in his quarterback room.

“I thought you could tell he had coach in him, like he was really, really sharp as a rookie. Eli (Manning) was playing then, but I remember he used to put together a tape at the end of the week. I think it was more or less to test the quarterbacks, you know, what they might see. And I thought it was really impressive, what he did. He’s an impressive guy. I mean, there’s a reason why he’s a coordinator at such a young age. So, I’m happy for him.”

Webb knows what transpires when you play for Spagnuolo, and he knows he’ll have his work cut out for him going against his former head coach on Monday night.

“I was his scout team quarterback,” Webb told reporters this week. “So, back in the day, only the defensive players and myself got banana pudding from his wife. I miss Spags. He’s a great dude. He’s one of the best defensive coordinators in this game’s history, and it’ll be a tough challenge for us out of the gate.”

Familiarity will play a role until the final whistle between the Chiefs and Broncos

These relationships will play a part in this Week 1 matchup. How well do you know your opponent and what to expect from them? How well can you adjust and change things up? Tendency breakers could be key for both sides of the ball, for both teams. That familiarity doesn’t just come from the AFC West rivalry and the fact that these teams play each other twice a season. It extends to memory, understanding, and knowing what these former players-turned-coaches like to do.

In the NFL, it’s a game of inches. Things could come down to a single play, a single decision, and a single idea to gain an edge. Monday night’s Chiefs-Broncos opener carries more layers than the typical AFC West clash. Those could ultimately decide the outcome.