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DENVER — When the Denver Broncos took their first loss of the season to the Buffalo Bills, the overarching feeling in the locker room appeared to be annoyance. Guys sat at their lockers shaking their heads at the performance they had put on the field.
On Sunday night, following their second loss of the season—a 23-10 loss to a previously winless team—the feeling took a turn for the angry side.
“I’m really pissed off,” said an ornery Derek Wolfe after the game.
Coming into the game as the best run defense in the league—going up against a team averaging just 77 yards on the ground per game—the Broncos took a massive step back, allowing some guy by the name of Orleans Darkwa to snap off for more yards (117) than they had allowed Melvin Gordon, Ezekiel Elliot LeSean McCoy, and Marshawn Lynch combined (95).
“This is bullshit. We’re not supposed to go out there and play that way,” he said. “We can’t turn the ball over. We can’t let somebody run the ball like that on us. It’s just, it’s bullshit, and we have to clean that shit up.”
“We got our ass kicked tonight,” chimed in running back C.J. Anderson. “It’s pathetic right now. We’re just not executing.”
As Wolfe found himself trying to explain what went wrong in the game, noting that the Giants had so many injuries that they were hard to gameplan for, he stopped himself.
“You can’t make excuses, man, we have to go out there and play better. That’s just bullshit. I’m just disappointed.”
“It was their day, man,” he concluded. “Sometimes it just ain’t your day, and that’s how it felt today. It was like almost—we almost had a catch, we almost had a sack, almost had a (tackle for loss). We would almost have a (tackle for loss) in the backfield, miss the guy, and he’d run for 10 yards. You can’t have that; we have to make tackles… Sometimes it’s just not your day, man… We didn’t play our best, and that’s why I’m pissed.”
Not only did they not play their best, the Broncos played what we can only assume is their worst. 10 points of offense on a depleted defense, 148 yards allowed on the ground to a nameless offense, no matter how you slice it, it was U-G-L-Y for Denver.
Now, the Broncos will have to right the ship quickly as they jump into their toughest stretch of the season, a three-game road trip that includes contests against two 5-1 teams, the Philadelphia Eagles, and Kansas City Chiefs. But first, the Los Angeles Chargers, and as we’ve learned oh-so certainly this season, nobody can be taken lightly.