Denver Broncos players were dejected in the locker room after a 16-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
Broncos defensive lineman Zach Allen told The Denver Post‘s Parker Gabriel that it was “the worst loss I’ve ever had in my life.” Denver pass rusher Jonathon Cooper also said he had never felt a loss as painful as Sunday’s.
On the final play of the game, the Chiefs blocked Wil Lutz’s 35-yard field goal attempt to seal Denver’s fate. Lutz was close to tears in the locker room after the game.
Andrew Mason of DenverSports.com tweeted that he hadn’t seen the team’s locker room that devastated since a double-overtime loss to the Baltimore Ravens in the 2013 playoffs.
“I told our team I was proud of how they fought,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said after the game. “I thought we outplayed them. Nonetheless, you have to beat a champion. We weren’t able to do it. It is gut-wrenching.”
The game came down to the final play, but Denver shouldn’t have let it get to that point.
“It wasn’t just one play [that cost the game],” pass rusher Nik Bonitto said after the loss. “I mean, I had plays that I could have made today. [There were] plays on defense that we all could have been better on. So I mean, everybody can look at the last play, but there’s many plays in the game that you can look at that we could have been better.”
“It felt like we outplayed them, but we didn’t finish,” Payton said. “We had an opportunity to right at the end. We controlled the ball. We have to be able to finish. That one will take a while. It will sting.”
Broncos veteran right tackle Mike McGlinchey isn’t ready to throw in the towel.
“If you’re hanging your head at this point of the season, I don’t think you belong in this league,” McGlinchey said after the game. “We’re 5-5. We’re right in the thick of it. And we kind of control our own destiny here as this goes out. We have an opportunity to go and win a lot of football games with a lot of season left. And that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
Bo Nix, Denver’s rookie quarterback said the team won’t hang their heads.
“We feel we can compete against a lot of teams in this league, all of them, really,” Nix said. “We’ve faced a lot of good teams this year and have been in one-possession games, it feels like, in every single one of them. We’re close, we just have to find ways to get over the hump, find ways to make a play when they don’t and make the play that wins it.
“In this league, that’s the line between playoff teams, championship teams and all the other guys. We’re here to fight. We don’t have a bunch of guys that are going to hang their heads and quit. We’re going to continue to fight and battle. Each week is going to have something else in store and we just have to respond.”
The Broncos will now attempt to bounce back at home when they host the Atlanta Falcons (6-4) at Empower Field at Mile High next week.
