Broncos players reflect on historic loss

Never in the entire history of the team, even in the past several seasons of losing, even at the infamous showdown against the Los Angeles Rams last Christmas, have the Denver Broncos had such reason for embarrassment. Today’s game against the Miami Dolphins is going to be talked about for a while.

It hurts something awful when the official NFL Twitter page is making a joke about it. It hurts even more knowing that we deserve it.

CB Patrick Surtain II, who is normally on his A game, was among the many disappointments of today’s fiasco, with a grand total of five tackles. In the post-game presser, he admitted that he didn’t execute. None of the defense executed.

And frankly, that might be a generous statement.

“It’s a long season ahead. We have a lot to look forward to as a team, but this is going to hurt for a minute. Just going through the days, this one is going to sting, especially defensively,” he admitted, “We didn’t do what we (needed to).”

ILB Alex Singleton described the feeling of watching the opposition team score over and over again without resistance.

“You just feel like your back is against the wall,” he said, “You got to make a play, especially as an older guy now, someone’s got to make a play and change that momentum. We weren’t able to do it.”

Courtland Sutton scored a touchdown (and almost a second one, which was called back), but he also fumbled the ball twice. The WR expressed his own regret for a game poorly lost.

“We always say that when we are carrying the ball, we’ve got everybody’s’ dreams, goals and aspirations. I put the ball on the ground twice today which is very frustrating,” he confessed, adding that the overall outcome of the game was much worse than just losing.

“There’s losing and there’s getting your butt handed to you,” he clarified, “I think that we got our butt handed to us today.”

Regarding what’s ahead for the team, Sutton described a reckoning of sorts. “This can’t happen again. This won’t happen again. All of us are going to have to look in the mirror and be real with ourselves and figure out what it is going to take.”

“Coach told us it’s going to take more,” he went on, “It’s going to take being uncomfortable. It’s going to take guys going to different levels that they haven’t been to so that we can make sure this does not happen again.”

I need to mention my respect for the Dolphins and their HC Mike McDaniel — not only for a game well played, but for their class — especially in their decision to kneel out the game instead of kicking a field goal at the end. They could’ve broken an NFL record for most points scored in a game, but they didn’t. They could have driven the stake even further through Denver’s chest today, but they didn’t.

There’s just no way to put a positive spin on the Broncos right now. It’s still the beginning and everyone seems to have already lost the season. Marvin Mims might be the only one who isn’t at least partially responsible for this dumpster fire of a team performance.

I hope 0-3 hurts enough to wake them up.